Gadgetory

ah what could be better than sitting in your favorite coffee shop sipping an overpriced latte Chino thing and browsing whatever the drama of the day is on Reddit I'll tell you doing it securely although public Wi-Fi networks are useful for staying connected on the go they're also notorious for being easy for attackers to spy on and see a heck of a lot more than just the dank means that you send to your friends so why are these networks so insecure what are some of the common ways they get attacked and what can you do to keep prying eyes away from your browsing habits even though public Wi-Fi hotspots have been around since the early 2000s and people have generally become more aware of online security risks since then there are still a number of common vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit for instance many public Wi-Fi networks use no password or encryption of any sort in which case attackers can see all the traffic on the network and you actually don't even need any special hacking skills to do it there are plenty of programs floating around that enable spying on unsecured networks with just a few mouse clicks now you might assume that public Wi-Fi that uses wpa2 PSK the standard dataflow encryption in most modern routers is safe and that would be true in a home setting as you're only sharing a password with people you trust but in a public place like a cafe anyone with the password who connects before you do can spy on your handshake the communication that occurs between your device and the access point when you first connect to the hotspot in this way an attacker can steal your encryption key and see all of your traffic even though your connection is encrypted public Wi-Fi is also susceptible to something called a man-in-the-middle attack which is just what it sounds like a bad person sitting in between your device and the internet looking at all of your stuff as it flies by many times this kind of attacker will set up a fake Wi-Fi hotspot that looks like a legit one if you connect to it your internet traffic will go right through the attackers computer possibly allowing them to see whatever you're doing okay Linus I get it public Wi-Fi is about as secure as a screen door made of cheese but is there any way that I can use it without broadcasting everything I'm doing fortunately yes there are a number of things you can do to protect yourself number one use HTTPS you know that thing that encrypts your connection and puts a little lock icon in the corner of your browser many websites that require logins such as Gmail and Facebook use HTTPS by default but for sites that don't you can actually download browser extensions that for sites to use an HTTPS connection as long as the site supports it some of these will also enable sending your cookies over a secure connection to prevent cookie theft which you can learn more about here this allows your traffic to be unintelligible to attackers even over an unsecured Wi-Fi connection or number to use a virtual private network or VPN for more serious security this will create a secure tunnel between your device and a proxy server that encrypts all traffic even if the site you're visiting doesn't support HTTPS VPNs are available as both free and paid services and often let you choose between various tiers of service depending on your needs and finally number three make sure to ask the management at whatever establishment you're visiting what the name of their actual Wi-Fi network is to avoid connecting to a fake access point remember identifying fakes won't always be as easy as not connecting to the shady white van parked outside Wi-Fi network and this is related to our topic today sort of I mean apps are online and we're talking about on anyway don't read about it too much Braintree yes my friends if you're building a mobile app and looking for a simple payment solution Braintree could be the way to go probably is the way to go check out their V dot 0 SDK which is an easy way to add everything pretty much ever Apple pay Android pay PayPal venmo credit cards and even Bitcoin support with just a few lines of code and if you're having any trouble it's as simple as getting in touch with their friendly support people to walk you through it Braintree is used by uber Airbnb and github so it is scalable and the coolest thing today is that if you head over to Braintree comm slash tech wiki you can get your first fifty thousand dollars in transactions fee free as our way of saying try out brain free today and see how it works for you so thanks for watching guys if you enjoyed this video wait this one and if you didn't enjoy it then the other one also check out our other channels Linus tech tips and channels super fun we are going to have a pretty amazing video over on channel super fun we're going to be playing rocket League in real life so check that out up there get subscribed and all that good stuff also leave a comment with video suggestions for future episodes if you have any and get subscribed here on tech wiki so you don't miss any more of these videos especially if we make one that you suggest right