fred avolio's musings

Wireless hotspots are … well, hot. And they can be safe for computing with a bit of care on your part. Wayne Rash at CMP has excellent suggestions in his column at www.securitypipeline.com/57702370. I have a few additions, which I hope are obvious.

• Antivirus software. Of course.You always have your AV protection up, running, and updated, right?
• PC firewall. You have it running all the time, also, on your portable PC, right?

A wireless hotspot with its lack of confidentiality on the connection leaves your communications open to snooping (which Wayne covers). It also might make your system an attack target. Make sure your PC firewall knows that you are now in untrusted territory. You may have set it as “trusted” when working at home or the office.