My most recent article on public wireless networks security has gotten quite some feedback from my readers, which is appreciated. It has also raised a number of questions. While I always love to answer correspondence on an individual basis, there were enough common ground in some of the questions to justify a follow-up article. So here we go.

The main point raised was what to do when one is on the road for prolonged periods of time and cannot just wait until the next time one is home and able to connect the portable computer to a secure wireless connection to do banking and other sensitive data transmission type activities. The earlier article tips were more about what not to do. But can one DO about it? Note: because the technical level of my articles is geared toward the non-initiated and the technical details are generally left out, I will only cover what can be done in a generic way.

For starters, you can make sure your general portable computer security level is robust:

• Is sharing files and folders enabled in your laptop’s wireless connection? it shouldn’t.
• Are any of the services that allow remote connections to your computer running? they should be disabled.
• Is your wireless card set to roam aggressively so if it finds a stronger signal it connects to a new hotspot automatically? that opens the door to connections to rogue hotspots and should therefore be set to not changing automatically.
• Is wireless network ad-hoc (computer to computer) mode disabled in your laptop? it should be to avoid accidentally connecting to someone else’s computer.
• Is your firewall on, and if your operating system is Windows XP, do you have a more robust firewall in place? consider free alternatives like Comodo’s or ZoneAlarm’s firewalls.

That covers a few points. But even with all the above points taken care of, there is still the problem of connecting to a hotspot that has no encryption. What to do then when one is about to engage in sensitive emails handling, online transactions, banking? The solution with the most consent is, use a private virtual private network (VPN). What is a VPN? It’s a type of network technology that allows secure communication between 2 computers or groups of computers via a public channel, usually the internet. It has many uses and providing wireless security while on a public hotspot is just one of them.

Both free and paid versions of personal VPN programs exist that can be applied to this problem. An example of a free one is Hotspot Shield, that can be found here: http://hotspotshield.com/. An example of a paid one can be found in this link. There is no implicit recommendation of either of these examples, although the free one was recommended to me by one of my readers. Update: See http://remotehelpexpert.com/blog/?p=1615 for an update on the hotspotshield recommendation.

So if you are in the situation where you are on the road constantly and need to use public hotspots, you might want to consider a personal VPN solution as a deterrent to wireless sniffers and man-in-the-middle type of attacks.