<p>When traveling I am always concerned about using unsecured hotel wifi or even public hot spots to access email. Are my fears justified ? How about signing in to something like a bank account ? Can the information be intercepted by someone using the same portal/network/whatever ? I am not too knowledgeable about these things. :o</p>
<p>yes, yes and yes. You should NEVER conduct banking business through an unsecured wifi network</p>
<p>I do not do anything that requires a login and a password on a public WiFi. Even Facebook accounts can be targeted by crooks, as the recent stolen Facebook identity case showed.</p>
<p>Um, actually no - sorry, but menloparkmom is incorrect.</p>
<p>When signing into those unsecured public hotspots, most data sent between your computer and the router is unencrypted and therefore open to interception by someone else within range of the same router who is using packet sniffing software. That means that they can see which websites you visit, pictures, etc. Also any unencrypted e-mails you send/receive.</p>
<p>However, when you use encrypted websites (such as banking sites, brokerage sites, etc etc.), which are usually noted by a padlock or other such symbol in most browsers, your data is safe, even on unsecured wifi spots. This is because the data is encrypted in both directions, and the 128-bit standard right now is essentially unbreakable. So you’re good for private data like that.</p>
<p>^Thanks Icarus.</p>
<p>Is Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo mail encrypted ?</p>
<p>Should I invest in some encryption software if not ? I need to check into my email accounts frequently when traveling.</p>
<p>I know you can with Hotmail - on the standard login page, just click “Use Enhanced Security” and then sign in.</p>
<p>Not sure about the other two.</p>
<p>The padlock you were referring to, is it the one that appears at the sign in page of the web site and when one put the mouse over it, say something like “authenticated by VeriSign” or “authenticated byThawte Consulting…”. When I see that, it means the data I send is encrypted ?</p>
<p>No it should be on the browser itself. It should look like one of these pictures, depending on your browser</p>
<p><a href=“bayengravingltd.com - bayengravingltd Resources and Information.”>bayengravingltd.com - bayengravingltd Resources and Information.;
<p><a href=“http://www.onestepssl.com/img/high-assurance-ff.jpg[/url]”>http://www.onestepssl.com/img/high-assurance-ff.jpg</a></p>
![http://www.onestepssl.com/img/high-assurance-ff.jpg[/url]](http://www.onestepssl.com/img/high-assurance-ff.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>^Very interesting.</p>
<p>When I went to paypal.com(US) , I get the same P, and https, but the padlock appears at the bottom right of the screen, not top left, as in yours. I use Firefox as well. I think it has something to do with my settings. </p>
<p>But I think I get the general idea now, thank you very much. </p>
<p>I am doing some research about this and some site said to use VPN to ensure security. </p>
<p>"# Don’t do your internet banking on free, open access points, and don’t do your online shopping where you need to provide your credit card details. Although these services should be over a SSL connection, you could be connected to a rogue access points, operated by some unscrupulous people. The access point could act like a man-in-the-middle, intercepting your communication with your banking service.</p>
<h1>But in the end it is strongly advised you can connect to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection at a free Wifi hotspot. Using a VPN connection will greatly improve your privacy, as all data is encrypted between you and the VPN server. Actually this improves security on secured access points as well because the security is only between the device and the access point, but from the access point onward it’s open again…"</h1>
<p>[Is</a> using an open Wifi hotspot secure? | Free Australia Wireless](<a href=“http://www.freeaustraliawireless.com/2008/01/08/is-using-an-open-wifi-hotspot-secure/]Is”>http://www.freeaustraliawireless.com/2008/01/08/is-using-an-open-wifi-hotspot-secure/)</p>
<p>But I think my hotmail, gmail accounts are relatively safe with the padlock and httpS.</p>
<p>The padlock, wherever it appears in the browser window, corresponds to seeing “https:” at the beginning of the URL, and this makes it safe for banking and email, as long as it’s your own personal computer (i.e., not a public computer running unknown software). If you see “http:” (like right now viewing this CC page) then your connection is not safe. As long as you see “https:” then you’re still safe over an unsecured no-password WiFi network.</p>
<p>munchkin:</p>
<p>You should be wary of any open connecion be it wireless or wired (as at some hotels). </p>
<p>When you are accessing a site via your browser look for the lock symbol and make sure your URL (location) begins with ‘https’ rather than just ‘http’. This https session is encrypted. Be wary of some locations because I’ve seen some that appear to take the user/password prior to the encryption - i.e. the user/pw would go in the clear and could be hacked.</p>
<p>To use VPN you’d need to be communicating between specific locations where you had control over both ends - like a company’s VPN access to their intranet. You won’t be able to do VPN to some other sites like hotmail, ebay, etc. since you don’t work there assumedly. </p>
<p>If you ever use a public computer for access to sites with sensitive info, like your banking site or any other site where you wouldn’t want someone else to hack in, make sure you close the browser session when you’re done - i.e. close the Internet Explorer of Firefox program. Better yet, don’t use a public computer for this kind of access if you can avoid it because there could be keystroke logging types of programs capturing your input.</p>
<p>The ‘authenticated by VeriSign or Thawte’ messages are protection against connecting to rogue sites. These companies are ‘certificate authorities’ and they certify that the site you connected to is genuine and not a rogue one.</p>
<p>Be wary of the lock symbol and https connection though because some sites will use this encrypted connection for the user/pw entry but then the next page you go to might be unencrypted. I noticed that gmail and hotmail seem to do this. This would mean your user/pw are safe but not the email content itself. However, gmail has an option you can set to force it to always use https which will encrypt the actual email traffic as well which you should make sure you set. When at gmail select ‘Settings’ at the top of the page and then select the ‘Always use HTTPS’. Hotmail has a link that allows you to sign-in using ‘enhanced security’ where you enter your user/pw. I didn’t see in the options how you could set Hotmail to encrypt the actual email sessions but it seems that there should be a way.
More info on gmail - [Enabling</a> the HTTPS setting - Gmail Help](<a href=“http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=74765]Enabling”>Can't sign in to your Google Account - Google Account Help)</p>
<p>When you have a page displayed you should be able to right click somewhere on the page, select ‘properties’ for IE or ‘view page info’ for Firefox, and see if the page is encrypted or not. You can also look for the lock symbol.</p>
<p>You might also want to disable the wireless radio of your laptop when you’re traveling except when you’re actually using it. You can do this either through the Network Settings or, on some laptops, through a slide switch on the front that disables it.</p>