**The Risks of Public Wi-Fi and How to Secure Yourself**

Right on the wall or the one they just hand out, there's a password that's publicly available, which can decrypt anything, putting you at risk if you use any public Wi-Fi, even if it's password protected. If that password is publicly available, hackers can easily decrypt everything you're doing from now on unless you change it. This is why you shouldn't give out your Wi-Fi password to people you don't know because then they now have the potential to just decrypt everything you're doing.

However, this isn't the main thing but anytime you connect to open Wi-Fi, Windows usually pops up a thing that asks you what type of network you want to hit public network, which will disable file sharing because otherwise anyone on that Network can probably access your computer. You want to disable file sharing before you do any of that.

The main thing you're going to want to do is get a VPN, or Virtual Private Network. These are not free services but they are your best bet. A VPN basically creates a secure connection between you and the service, and then funnels all your internet connection through that encrypted connection and then passes it on at the end to the actual website you want to go to. So in that case even if you're connected to public Wi-Fi, that VPN service is going to secure the connection the whole way so no one could even snoop.

In a lot of people will use this if their internet service providers throttle certain connections, you're going to use a VPN so the internet company's going to see that you're connected to the VPN but that's literally all they can see. They can't see what you're downloading all they can see is how much you're downloading.

Now you might be wondering well hold on if all the connection is going through the VPN then that service can see everything you're doing okay fair enough point, but that's not necessarily true because on important websites hopefully you're still using https and a secure connection. And that is just between you and the website directly so even the VPN can't see what's going on in that.

So it's kind of double encrypted so yes theoretically the VPN service could see anything you're sending unencrypted but if it's a reputable company then it's better than the alternative which is literally everyone being able to see that. In any case even if you're using a VPN you should still be careful for which access points you connect to because they might be a honey pot where it kind of tries to attract all these other computers that connect to it automatically even if you don't want to or if it looks like the one you're looking for and it's not actually.

Obviously if you're out in public and you see some random Wi-Fi name like Bob's free Wi-Fi yeah don't connect to that one. I personally do use a VPN anytime I'm not at home, like I'm traveling or something like that for my computer and I typically don't even connect to Wi-Fi on my phone because I have unlimited data so I just stay connected to the service.

If you do travel a lot, I highly recommend getting a VPN. The one I use is called Private Internet Access. I'm not getting paid to say that there's no affiliate links or anything. If you're just wondering which one I use, that's it. I think it's really cheap, it's like 5 bucks a month. They're based in the US. I don't think they keep logs pretty reputable but in any case hopefully all this information was pretty useful and you learn something from it.

**Recommended VPN Services**

If you guys did like this video obviously give it a thumbs up I would really appreciate it and let me know down in the comment section what you think if you have a VPN service that you recommend let us know. Also, if you have any other ideas for how to be secure let us know down there as well.

**Subscribe and Stay Informed**

If you guys want to keep watching I'll put some links over here you can click these even if you're on a phone. And if you want to subscribe I try to make new videos at least three times a week, Tuesday Thursday Saturday so it should definitely be worth it. Also, consider clicking the Bell next to the Subscribe button so you get notifications every time I upload a video otherwise YouTube's algorithm is probably not going to show you them otherwise.

**Conclusion**

Thanks again for watching guys I hope to see you next time and hope you enjoyed the video have a good one

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat if I were to tell you that everything you were doing online every website you went to everything you typed into those websites was viewable to anybody around you well if you ever connect to an open wi-fi hotspot that is exactly what happens and I'm talking about any Wi-Fi access point that doesn't require a password to initially log in So at the airport or hotel or coffee shop any of those and I'm not talking about the type of password where you connect to the point and then it brings up a web page to log in that is not a secured access point it needs to be one where you type in the password before you can even access anything right as soon as you connect to it so how is this possible how can anybody Snoop in on your connection if you're using a Wi-Fi Hotpot well it has to do with how the connection Works between your computer and the router on a router that requires a password hopefully like the one you're using at home if you're not using a Wi-Fi password on your home router you got some something cominging for you I'm just telling you that right now but anyway when you use a password that means that that router encrypts all the connection between your computer or anything else and that router using that password so anybody snooping in can't see what websites you're going to what you're typing in what you're downloading what services you're using anything like that and if someone did try to Snoop in on it if they were off to the side with a radio antenna or something next to your house if they were to receive those signals it would just be a bunch of gibberish cuz it's all encrypted and they don't have the password so that's why it's safe but if you connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot that is open that doesn't need a password to connect initially that means that anything you send to that router and back is unencrypted and can be received by anyone obviously you can't have a password or else it wouldn't be public no one would be able to connect to it so that means that anybody within range can just set up a Wi-Fi receiver and collect anything that's coming by even if they are not connected to that access Point themselves even if they're not connected to the Wi-Fi they can still see that everything your computer is just broadcasting out hoping it gets to that router so they can see any websites you're going to what you're typing into those websites what you're downloading everything so you can see how this is a big issue but is really everything viewable by a hacker who's nearby okay I may have exaggerated a little bit but it's not that far from the truth you see in a case where they wouldn't really be able to see anything is where most websites hopefully on the checkout Pages or like your bank they might use what is called SSL or TLS or if you look on the browser it say https that means that that connection to that specific web page is encrypted between you and the website so any information in that specific connection would be gibberish if someone were to listen in but it's important to remember that not every website uses SSL or TLS and not all of them use it on every web page within it so I kind of mentioned that important websites like Banks and hopefully email websites will use it on the entire site so you can't see anything but sometimes a website might only use it on the login page or a checkout page for a shopping cart and everything else is still unencrypted and even using https is not foolproof if the hacker does what is called a man-in-the-middle attack so what they might do is set up a fake Wi-Fi hotspot all together it just says public Wi-Fi and people connect to it thinking it's free but what happens is all that traffic is going through that Hacker's connection this could be a fake hotspot that looks like the one you're actually looking for so someone might make up the one that looks exactly like your hotel Wi-Fi or there are even devices that will look for signals that your computer sends out normally to look for Wi-Fi hotspots that it remembers and then once your computer sends out that signal it will reply oh yes that's me I'm the hot spot you're looking for then your computer will connect to it and think it's connecting to something safe and when it goes to use that password it'll just automatically say oh yeah that's yeah sure that's the password you're right and then again you're connected to that fake Wi-Fi hotspot and let me tell you if you connect to a fake Wi-Fi hotspot that is malicious you're screwed my friend imagine this you go to your banking website while you're connected to a fake Wi-Fi hotspot yeah you might see that it's https you're thinking all right that's a secured connection but guess what that's not the real banking website that hacker set up on their fake server thing a fake website that looks exactly like the one that you're looking for and redirects your request to that and sets up a fake secure connection so it looks like you're securely connected to uh Wells Fargo or Bank of America but really it's not that so it all looks like it's on the up and up but anything you said into it is captured from the hacker or maybe even forwarded so anything that comes back looks legitimate but they were in the middle so they got everything unencrypted because you weren't really securely connected to the website you're looking for directly so basically never use public Wi-Fi for banking or other important websites it's just not worth the risk and you might be thinking well you know what I never go to coffee shops and I don't connect at the airport I never use open wi-fi well have you ever been on vacation have you ever connected to Hotel Wi-Fi then you used open wi-fi now you might say but I used a password to connect I had to type in my room number my last name all that and then I was able to use the internet yeah but the actual connection to the router was not password protected that was another system they have after you connected the router so anything still going between you and the router is just in the open air unencrypted anyone snooping in on the wireless connection can just see what's going on and get this even if you're in a public place and they do have a password it's a WPA2 encrypted connection you have to connect with the password you're still not safe imagine this you're at a coffee shop they post the SSID for the access point and the password right below it so you have to type that in to connect it's encrypted right well guess what everyone has the password so they can just decrypt all the information going to it so yes even though the connections are encrypted between you and the router you can use the password which is posted right on the wall or the one they just hand out and you can decrypt anything so all a hacker has to do is use the publicly available password to decrypt everyone who's connected to the public network so you are at risk if you use any public Wi-Fi even if it's password protected if that password is publicly available and that's also why you really shouldn't give out your Wi-Fi password to people you don't know because then they now have the potential to just decrypt everything you're doing from now on unless you change it now you're probably thinking hold on what am I supposed to do then not use Wi-Fi on vacation ever again well actually there is something you can do to secure yourself if you have to use public Wi-Fi Now first of all this isn't the main thing but anytime you connect to open wi-fi Windows usually pops up a thing that asks you what type of network you definitely want to hit public network which will disable file sharing because otherwise anyone on that Network can probably access your computer so you want to disable file sharing before you do any of that but the main thing you're going to want to do is get a VPN a virtual private Network these are not free services but they are your best bet a VPN basically creates a secure connection between you and that service and then funnels all your internet connection through that encrypted connection and then passes it on at the end to the actual website you want to go to so in that case even if you're connected to public Wi-Fi that VPN service is going to secure the connection the whole way so no one could even Snoop in even though the connection between the router and you isn't secure the connection between you and everything else is secure so it's fine and this makes it so literally no one can see what's going on even a lot of people will use this if their internet service providers throttle certain connections you're going to use a VPN so the internet company's going to see that you're connected to the VPN but that's literally all they can see they can't see what you're downloading all they can see is how much you're downlo downloading now you might be wondering well hold on if all the connection is going through the VPN then that service can see everything you're doing okay fair enough point but that's not necessarily true because on important websites hopefully you're still using https and a secure connection and that is just between you and the website directly so even the VPN can't see what's going on in that so it's kind of double encrypted so yes theoretically the VPN service could see anything you're sending unencrypted but if it's a reputable company then it's better than the alternative which is literally everyone being able to see that though in any case even if you're using a VPN you should still be careful for which access points you connect to for the same reason I mentioned before it might be a honey pot where it kind of tries to attract all these other computers that connect to it automatically even if you don't want to or if it looks like the one you're looking for and it's not actually and obviously if you're out in public and you see some random Wi-Fi name like Bob's free Wi-Fi yeah don't connect to that one I personally do use a VPN anytime I'm not at home like I'm traveling or something like that for my computer and I typically don't even connect to Wi-Fi on my phone because I have unlimited data so I just stay connected to the sell company so if you do travel a lot I highly recommend getting a VPN the one I use is called private internet access I'm not getting paid to say that there's no affiliate links or anything um if you're just wondering which one I use that's it I think it's really cheap it's like 5 bucks a month they're based in the US I don't think they keep logs pretty reputable but in any case hopefully all this information was pretty useful and you learn something from it so if you guys did like this video obviously give it a thumbs up I would really appreciate it and let me know down in the comment section what you think if you have a VPN service that you recommend let us know and also if you have any other ideas for how to be secure let us know down there as well if you guys want to keep watching I'll put some links over here you can click these even if you're on a phone and if you want to subscribe I try to make new new videos at least three times a week Tuesday Thursday Saturday so it should definitely be worth it and also consider clicking the Bell next to the Subscribe button so you get notifications every time I upload a video otherwise YouTube's algorithm is probably not going to show you them otherwise so as usual thanks again for watching guys I hope to see you next time and hope you enjoyed the video have a good onewhat if I were to tell you that everything you were doing online every website you went to everything you typed into those websites was viewable to anybody around you well if you ever connect to an open wi-fi hotspot that is exactly what happens and I'm talking about any Wi-Fi access point that doesn't require a password to initially log in So at the airport or hotel or coffee shop any of those and I'm not talking about the type of password where you connect to the point and then it brings up a web page to log in that is not a secured access point it needs to be one where you type in the password before you can even access anything right as soon as you connect to it so how is this possible how can anybody Snoop in on your connection if you're using a Wi-Fi Hotpot well it has to do with how the connection Works between your computer and the router on a router that requires a password hopefully like the one you're using at home if you're not using a Wi-Fi password on your home router you got some something cominging for you I'm just telling you that right now but anyway when you use a password that means that that router encrypts all the connection between your computer or anything else and that router using that password so anybody snooping in can't see what websites you're going to what you're typing in what you're downloading what services you're using anything like that and if someone did try to Snoop in on it if they were off to the side with a radio antenna or something next to your house if they were to receive those signals it would just be a bunch of gibberish cuz it's all encrypted and they don't have the password so that's why it's safe but if you connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot that is open that doesn't need a password to connect initially that means that anything you send to that router and back is unencrypted and can be received by anyone obviously you can't have a password or else it wouldn't be public no one would be able to connect to it so that means that anybody within range can just set up a Wi-Fi receiver and collect anything that's coming by even if they are not connected to that access Point themselves even if they're not connected to the Wi-Fi they can still see that everything your computer is just broadcasting out hoping it gets to that router so they can see any websites you're going to what you're typing into those websites what you're downloading everything so you can see how this is a big issue but is really everything viewable by a hacker who's nearby okay I may have exaggerated a little bit but it's not that far from the truth you see in a case where they wouldn't really be able to see anything is where most websites hopefully on the checkout Pages or like your bank they might use what is called SSL or TLS or if you look on the browser it say https that means that that connection to that specific web page is encrypted between you and the website so any information in that specific connection would be gibberish if someone were to listen in but it's important to remember that not every website uses SSL or TLS and not all of them use it on every web page within it so I kind of mentioned that important websites like Banks and hopefully email websites will use it on the entire site so you can't see anything but sometimes a website might only use it on the login page or a checkout page for a shopping cart and everything else is still unencrypted and even using https is not foolproof if the hacker does what is called a man-in-the-middle attack so what they might do is set up a fake Wi-Fi hotspot all together it just says public Wi-Fi and people connect to it thinking it's free but what happens is all that traffic is going through that Hacker's connection this could be a fake hotspot that looks like the one you're actually looking for so someone might make up the one that looks exactly like your hotel Wi-Fi or there are even devices that will look for signals that your computer sends out normally to look for Wi-Fi hotspots that it remembers and then once your computer sends out that signal it will reply oh yes that's me I'm the hot spot you're looking for then your computer will connect to it and think it's connecting to something safe and when it goes to use that password it'll just automatically say oh yeah that's yeah sure that's the password you're right and then again you're connected to that fake Wi-Fi hotspot and let me tell you if you connect to a fake Wi-Fi hotspot that is malicious you're screwed my friend imagine this you go to your banking website while you're connected to a fake Wi-Fi hotspot yeah you might see that it's https you're thinking all right that's a secured connection but guess what that's not the real banking website that hacker set up on their fake server thing a fake website that looks exactly like the one that you're looking for and redirects your request to that and sets up a fake secure connection so it looks like you're securely connected to uh Wells Fargo or Bank of America but really it's not that so it all looks like it's on the up and up but anything you said into it is captured from the hacker or maybe even forwarded so anything that comes back looks legitimate but they were in the middle so they got everything unencrypted because you weren't really securely connected to the website you're looking for directly so basically never use public Wi-Fi for banking or other important websites it's just not worth the risk and you might be thinking well you know what I never go to coffee shops and I don't connect at the airport I never use open wi-fi well have you ever been on vacation have you ever connected to Hotel Wi-Fi then you used open wi-fi now you might say but I used a password to connect I had to type in my room number my last name all that and then I was able to use the internet yeah but the actual connection to the router was not password protected that was another system they have after you connected the router so anything still going between you and the router is just in the open air unencrypted anyone snooping in on the wireless connection can just see what's going on and get this even if you're in a public place and they do have a password it's a WPA2 encrypted connection you have to connect with the password you're still not safe imagine this you're at a coffee shop they post the SSID for the access point and the password right below it so you have to type that in to connect it's encrypted right well guess what everyone has the password so they can just decrypt all the information going to it so yes even though the connections are encrypted between you and the router you can use the password which is posted right on the wall or the one they just hand out and you can decrypt anything so all a hacker has to do is use the publicly available password to decrypt everyone who's connected to the public network so you are at risk if you use any public Wi-Fi even if it's password protected if that password is publicly available and that's also why you really shouldn't give out your Wi-Fi password to people you don't know because then they now have the potential to just decrypt everything you're doing from now on unless you change it now you're probably thinking hold on what am I supposed to do then not use Wi-Fi on vacation ever again well actually there is something you can do to secure yourself if you have to use public Wi-Fi Now first of all this isn't the main thing but anytime you connect to open wi-fi Windows usually pops up a thing that asks you what type of network you definitely want to hit public network which will disable file sharing because otherwise anyone on that Network can probably access your computer so you want to disable file sharing before you do any of that but the main thing you're going to want to do is get a VPN a virtual private Network these are not free services but they are your best bet a VPN basically creates a secure connection between you and that service and then funnels all your internet connection through that encrypted connection and then passes it on at the end to the actual website you want to go to so in that case even if you're connected to public Wi-Fi that VPN service is going to secure the connection the whole way so no one could even Snoop in even though the connection between the router and you isn't secure the connection between you and everything else is secure so it's fine and this makes it so literally no one can see what's going on even a lot of people will use this if their internet service providers throttle certain connections you're going to use a VPN so the internet company's going to see that you're connected to the VPN but that's literally all they can see they can't see what you're downloading all they can see is how much you're downlo downloading now you might be wondering well hold on if all the connection is going through the VPN then that service can see everything you're doing okay fair enough point but that's not necessarily true because on important websites hopefully you're still using https and a secure connection and that is just between you and the website directly so even the VPN can't see what's going on in that so it's kind of double encrypted so yes theoretically the VPN service could see anything you're sending unencrypted but if it's a reputable company then it's better than the alternative which is literally everyone being able to see that though in any case even if you're using a VPN you should still be careful for which access points you connect to for the same reason I mentioned before it might be a honey pot where it kind of tries to attract all these other computers that connect to it automatically even if you don't want to or if it looks like the one you're looking for and it's not actually and obviously if you're out in public and you see some random Wi-Fi name like Bob's free Wi-Fi yeah don't connect to that one I personally do use a VPN anytime I'm not at home like I'm traveling or something like that for my computer and I typically don't even connect to Wi-Fi on my phone because I have unlimited data so I just stay connected to the sell company so if you do travel a lot I highly recommend getting a VPN the one I use is called private internet access I'm not getting paid to say that there's no affiliate links or anything um if you're just wondering which one I use that's it I think it's really cheap it's like 5 bucks a month they're based in the US I don't think they keep logs pretty reputable but in any case hopefully all this information was pretty useful and you learn something from it so if you guys did like this video obviously give it a thumbs up I would really appreciate it and let me know down in the comment section what you think if you have a VPN service that you recommend let us know and also if you have any other ideas for how to be secure let us know down there as well if you guys want to keep watching I'll put some links over here you can click these even if you're on a phone and if you want to subscribe I try to make new new videos at least three times a week Tuesday Thursday Saturday so it should definitely be worth it and also consider clicking the Bell next to the Subscribe button so you get notifications every time I upload a video otherwise YouTube's algorithm is probably not going to show you them otherwise so as usual thanks again for watching guys I hope to see you next time and hope you enjoyed the video have a good one\n"