One thing most Kijubi customers have in common is a love for travel and getting out to see the world. If you’re like us, you probably spend a good amount of time in hotels on your business trips and adventures. Needless to say, we were quite alarmed when we read this Gadling post (one of our favorite travel blogs) discussing how hackers went after hotel networks more than any other any other destination in 2009. Yikes!
This hit home for us, so we did some additional digging from their source at Dark Reading and uncovered data from TrustWave’s Spider Labs highlighting that malicious attacks on hotel networks accounted for 38% of all known security breeches in 2009, more than the financial services industry (19%) and retail industries (14.2) combined.
To make matters worse, the hotels didn’t discover that the breeches had even occurred for an average of 156 days, leaving plenty of time for the cyber-criminals to use stolen credit card information, or take advantage of the personal data harvested for any number of identity theft scams.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take an expert hacker to tap into the hotel’s network, it’s often quite literally an open door due to the weak firewalls employed by the hotel and poor passwords used by the guests.
So what can be done to keep your data safe when travelling? For starters, choose a hotel that uses Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption, which requires a password to get on the network and encrypts all the data that is being transmitted.
If you’re doing business in your hotel room, make sure you log in through your company’s dedicated VPN and that your laptop has up to date firewalls and anti-virus software installed. Your IT guy will probably be all too happy to check that for you if you’re not technically inclined.
You can bring your own wireless data card so that you don’t have to rely on the hotel’s open WiFi network for connectivity. This can also come in handy in airport terminals and coffee shops, two other prime hunting grounds for would-be hackers.
Lastly, you can use any number of data encryption software solutions available today that serve to lock down the files, photos and videos on your computer. Many of the more advanced encryptions solutions now provide the ability to store and encrypt your online passwords so that you’ll be protected when you do have to enter them using a public network.
With the increasing instances of cyber-criminals targeting travelers, it’s crucial that we all understand the potential threats associated with data and identity theft. We know we’ll think twice the next time we get on a hotel network.
