Most people who use WiFi outside the home say they are not concerned about how secure it was. That’s according to telecoms regulator Ofcom’s 11th annual Communications Market report.
It found that three-quarters (77 per cent) disagreed with the statement “I am concerned about security when accessing WiFi outside the home” and about the same, 75 per cent, disagreed with the statement “there are certain things that I wouldn’t access/do on the internet when connected to public WiFi” .
As for concern for the security data connections, people said they were even less bothered when they accessed data outside the home via a 3G/4G connection. Some 85pc disagreed with the statement: ”I am concerned about security when accessing 3G/4G outside the home”. And seven in ten, 72pc of those who access WiFi outside the home disagreed with the statement: “public WiFi is less secure than my internet connection at home”. Two-thirds (67pc) of people did agree with the statement: “I password-protect the WiFi inside my home”; suggesting that one in three do not.
As for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the survey suggests that there is a confidence gap among SMEs in their ability to identify new communications products and services that would help their business. In Wales for example some 36 per cent say they do not feel confident in their ability to do this, while 67pc say they feel well informed about such communications. A lack of information does not seem to explain this low confidence – most Welsh SMEs (80pc) agree that information is widely available. However, about a third (35pc) of SMEs indicate that they have security concerns related to communications services, which may, in part at least, explain that lack of confidence. The figures are similar for Northern Ireland and Scotland; Ofcom did not give English figures.
For the report in full visit the Ofcom website:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/communications-market-reports/cmr14/?a=0
Comment
Toyin Adelakun, a VP at the authentication product company Sestus, has commented that people should be more worried about the security of public WiFi connections. “It is better to be safe than sorry,” he said. He made the point that the dangers of indiscriminately using Wi-Fi outside the home are ‘legion’. He listed them as:
Sniffing: particularly if the Wi-Fi network is unsecured and uses no encryption, attackers can eavesdrop on or “sniff” your data, inspecting it for usernames and passwords and any other sensitive information. But note that encryption and sniffing are NOT mutually exclusive: an attacker might set up a Wi-Fi network with encryption and still perform sniffing (e.g. via a so-called “evil twin” network).
Man-in-the-middle attack: Using so-called ARP spoofing and session-hijacking methods, attackers can insert themselves between your device and a server, masquerading as you to the actual server, and masquerading as the server to you. Often, the attackers will use encryption, which makes the deception more convincing. Once thus inserted, attackers can modify or at least snoop on your communications.
Malware: An attacker with a computer on the same Wi-Fi network can be on the lookout for vulnerable laptops, and infect them with malware. The attacker might indeed be the person who set up the network, and might use a “captive portal” for the purposes of installing malware.
Data theft via File Sharing: Many laptop users have File Sharing enabled — as a feature of Windows or Mac OS. On public Wi-Fi networks, file sharing should be disabled — but in many cases is not. This opens the risk of unwanted access to data held on the laptop.
