New warning for Wi-Fi users

An investigation by the BBC programme Watchdog has uncovered that the UK’s top three Wi-Fi providers are all susceptible to attack by hackers – meaning you might not be as safe as you think when accessing the internet in public places.

The programme, broadcast on BBC1 in October, investigated the Wi-Fi services provided by BT Openzone, The Cloud and T-Mobile in thousands of locations across the country, including hotels, trains, airport lounges and high-street food outlets.  It revealed that criminals were hijacking Wi-Fi services to access users’ online accounts, rather than stealing identities to set up new accounts in those names.

According to Tom Illube from internet security firm Garlik, there has been a 207% increase in ‘account takeover fraud’ such as this over the last year.  Illube said:

“I think a lot of people don’t realise that using public Wi-Fi that’s insecure is pretty much like writing your bank details onto a postcard and popping it in the post and being surprised that someone’s read it.”

On the programme, Watchdog presenters demonstrated just how easily an email account on a laptop can be accessed by criminals.  They were even able to ‘freeze out’ the user in seconds, so he could no longer access his own account while they controlled it.

The programme recommended that people use a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, when working in public hotspots.  The three big hotspot providers told the programme that following the findings of the investigation, they would do more to encourage the use of VPNs to protect Wi-Fi users.