CERT: Do not use public WiFi at airports and railway stations

Government agencies of Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in) has warned that Public WiFi hotspot or wireless internet networks installed at airports and railway stations are at risk of cyber attack. This warning was issued after an international research highlighted the vulnerability in WPA or WPA2 encryption that is most commonly used to connect to wireless networks.

According to the warning issued by CERT the vulnerability quotient of public WiFi is at ‘high’. And has asked users to avoid connecting to such networks.

“Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities allows an attacker to obtain sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails etc,” CERT-in reportedly said.

CERT suggested the users to use VPN (virtual private network) and wired networks instead of open WiFi. According to researchers, users of Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows devices were among those who were vulnerable to cyber attacks such as key reinstallation attack or KRACK.