If you know how to turn you iPhone into a WiFi hotspot, then you’re probably one of the more savvy iPhone users. However, what you don’t know may hurt you. Most iPhone users are completely unaware of the endemic risks in connecting to a WiFi network through not only their iPhone, but their laptops as well.
Any day of the week you may be at your local Starbucks for the coffee and the WiFi. Or maybe you do a lot of business travel, so you take advantage of the WiFi offered at major hotels. But if you’re using your iPhone as your hotspot you should be aware that the WiFi networks at such establishments are not protected. The signal from your laptop and iPhone to that WiFi router is completely open for anyone to look at. Anybody can essentially wiretap every keystroke from your iPhone to the Starbucks WiFi router.
It’s these types of risks that have spawned new products to help you make the most of your iPhone’s really cool WiFi abilities. The folks at AnchorFree are trying to create a safer way for people to consume broadband access through their iPhone. It’s a novel offering that should appeal to any iPhone user who regularly uses the free WiFi feature. Anchorfree is a security and privacy application that runs on a VPN, a virtual private network. It creates an encrypted tunnel between your device (the iPhone) and their VPN servers before you access the Internet.
So of course the next step is to purchase and download this app from iPhone store, right? Wrong! This doesn’t require a download and it’s free. The iPhone comes with a VPN already preloaded and Anchorfree will act as your VPN service provider. It’s very easy to configure – it’ll take a couple of seconds. After configured a small
VPN icon will appear on your screen so that you can see that your connection has been encrypted.
AnchorFree isn’t an automatic application that launches when you turn on WiFi. You, the user, can choose to turn it on or off. The indicator at the top of the screen let’s you know that your data won’t be snooped by crafty pirates. Anchorfree has pretty large VPN network so you shouldn’t notice any performance issues either.
There has been a pervasive perception of safety with regard to the iPhone’s WiFi capabilities. But WiFi comes with the same risks as when you connect your laptop to a WiFi network. Connecting to unsecured wifi networks simply isn’t safe. There is an abundance of tools and utilities on the Internet that will enable any unscrupulous hack to grab your session cookies for Webmail and Facebook. They can quickly and easily access your accounts long after you’re gone.
So make the most of your iPhone WiFi and invest in solid security.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for these tips. it’s scary to think you’re being keyboard-wiretapped, even if everything you’re doing is innocuous
I had no idea that an iPhone hotspot was so insecure. I wish more people were aware of this.
I agree this is important info to share with people you know. From now on, it’s Anchorfree for me!