Using WiFi in Public Places

[DHodges34]

Hoops' post got me thinking some of you guys may have useful info/thoughts on this.

My wife uses her laptop (running Windows 8) for work and is in Einstein's, Starbucks, etc. pretty often using WiFi. She is constantly having little annoying issues with things not working as they should and having to waste time dealing with them...She does a lot of business with Staples and one of their employees took a look at it for her a little while ago, helped her use recovery tools to get it back working. During their conversation he specifically asked whether she does work in places like Starbucks and warned her not to use WiFi in there because "hacker kids" with nothing better to do will sit in there and try to mess with people's stuff through the unsecured network.

I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of this stuff is not great but the skeptical side of me wondered if this guy is just using scare tactics...of course Staples sells an all inclusive protection package, yada yada, which the guy didn't try to sell her but it still seems odd.

So is the "hacker kid" sitting in Starbucks trying to put viruses on people's computers a real thing?

 

[UCFRogerz]

 

[UCF w00t]

WiFi at places like this can indeed be dangerous. It's not hard to hijack data and steal stuff from sites that aren't encrypted (http and not https). They could also inject malware into pages which could in theory be installed on your computer. But do I think this is likely? Not really. It's just not worth people's troubles, even hacker kids with nothing better to do. You also either have to physically be there or plant a device there in order for this to work. It's not something you could feasibly do once and keep active for long periods of time. I personally avoid free WiFi generally because of these risks but use it if I really need to just because I think the odds of it actually happening are so slim.

Now that said, I hope your wife's computer is running Windows 8.1 and is fully up-to-date on Windows Updates. These should be automatically installed approximately once per month (Microsoft traditionally releases security updates on the second Tuesday of each month). Keeping your computer up-to-date is by far the most crucial aspect of keeping your computer clean of viruses. In addition, it is extremely critical to keep things like Flash Player, Java, Chrome, FireFox, etc updated. Better yet, just disable and/or uninstall Java and maybe even Flash if they aren't critical. Java is total shit and constantly has unpatched bugs. Not only that but their updater is garbage and helpfully sneaks it's own Ask toolbar and other bullshit in on your computer if you're not paying attention.

I also recommend taking your computers to the Microsoft Store for issues like this (assuming there's one in your area, luckily there's two in Orlando). Their techs are much better and they will do most basic software repairs for free.