With more and more hotels offering free Wi-Fi services you may be tempted to take your laptop with you on holiday, but beware when using open networks, says. John Hillman

Free Wi-Fi is great, lounging around in your hotel room or on the beach, you can upload photos onto Facebook, give all your friends a real-time commentary on how much fun you’re having while they’re stuck waiting for a bus in the rain, and keep updated with sports without having to pay 3 Euro for an abridged copy of a dodgy newspaper.

But there are dangers when you log onto an open network, especially as hacking is now such big business and large open networks such as the ones found in hotels are a fertile hunting ground for hackers looking for personal information.

For extra safety whilst on holiday McAfee’s Tracy Mooney recommends taking the following precautions:

PC users

1. Make sure you have a current subscription to an anti-virus program and that it has a Firewall which McAfee Total Protection does have.
2. Make sure banking/financial passwords are different from any other passwords. Don’t save passwords so it automatically logs in
3. Before you log on, look for/ask for the exact name of the Wi-Fi you want to connect to so you don’t connect to a hacker instead.
4. Turn off automatic connection to a network so your computer doesn’t connect without your knowledge. (It also saves battery life.)
5. Only log on to bank/financial sites when you are on a secure connection such as at home.

Mac Users

1. Make sure banking/financial passwords are different from any other passwords. Don’t save passwords so it automatically logs in!
2. Check your settings:
• Go to network Preferences > By Default > join “preferred networks”. Edit your preferred network SSID’s to include only trusted sources.
• Next click “Options,” and make sure “ask before joining an open network” is selected.
• Check the “Require Administrator Password to change networks” box, and deselect the option to automatically add new networks to the preferred list.

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Image Credit: pink fish13

Tags: Hacking, holiday security, laptops, open networks

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 3:04 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.