These days, travellers are relying more and more on having good secure hotel wifi networks when they are travelling for business or pleasure. While it is never the best option to use a public wifi such as those you find at a hotel, there are some ways to make sure that the hotel where you are staying has a secure server. Whether you are someone in charge of hotel hospitality or a tech who travels, these tips should be known to any traveller when they take out their laptop and set down to cruise the web.
It Starts with Basic Security Steps
To begin, there are a few steps that anyone who travels should know when they use their hotel wifi to do business. The first is to never use any kind of public wifi network to conduct banking business. If you can, tether the laptop or tablet to the phone and use your cellular signal for this type of transaction. Every year hackers make use of fake public networks to steal passwords for banking online. If you must do it at a public space, change that password as soon as you return home. In fact, the best security is to always change your bank password when you return home from any travel.
Lock it Up
You should have two very important ways to protect that laptop or tablet when travelling. One is to always have a secure password required for anyone to use your device. The second one is to have a way to remote wipe all your information in case of theft. Letting hotel guests know of these two ways to protect their devices is only good guest care.
Password Managers Are Our Friends
If you are like many people who spend a lot of time online, you have at least a dozen websites you go to on a regular basis. So while it might be easier to just remember one password for all of them, that is a good way to get your most important sites hacked. Each site should have its own password, which can make them hard to remember. This is why password managers are such a great idea, but only if you have a secure computer for them. Having that password manager in the cloud with its own password is another way to get around this so you have a secure and safe way to travel and still remember those pesky passwords for all your important sites.
Beware of Foreign Malware and Hotel Wifi
For those who travel abroad, particularly in Asia and Russia, you might want to bring a “burner” instead of the usual phone and laptop. The incidences of viral infections in software and hardware has become a growing problem in this part of the world. To play it safe, make the smart decision and keep the important high end hardware at home when heading to Asia or Russia for fun or business.
For all of these tips, it is always good to think with your head first. Most of this is simply plain good common sense when dealing with hotel and public wifi spots. Technology is a great thing and it has certainly made doing business on the fly easier than ever. But for those of us who rely on our tech being secure, these are the steps that will make that travel easier and safer for the tech we love to use.
