When I'm out of the house and out on business calls, I'll often take my laptop computer with me as it's very useful for both business needs and for my spare time. However, connecting to public wireless networks can be dangerous if your computer isn't secure, and all kinds of things can happen. I think I've got it covered, but I'd like it if someone checked through this list and tell me if there's anything else I need to do in order to secure my computer on an open WiFi connection...
Make sure firewall and AV are beefed up, latest patches and updates
Latest OS patches and updates - stops old exploits from working, especially on a Windows laptop
Disabling shared folders so people can't snoop through my stuff
That's all I've got right now. I don't know what else I can actually do, but I'd really appreciate some suggestions.
Comments
That's definitely an option, but I wouldn't personally use anything like that in fear of the providers logging my every move. If we're going down the VPN route, I think it would be much safer, again, to set one up from home.
Thanks for the suggestion :thumbsup:
I think trx has a guide on that somewhere in this section.
I have a free account over at shellmix.com that i use for this.
for linux servers with openssh installed and configued, on the client: This is secure enough, but if you want to force ssh2 and use compression: then i configure firefox to use socks with localhost:3333
I'd imagine it's the same for windows servers but with putty. I'm not sure how this is done.
It's some guys linux server. He gives people access to it. Anyone can create an account and you're able to log into the PC remtotely with ssh. The shellmix.com server is in poland.
you get a command line with a comprehensive set of tools/apps installed.
This type of shared access was a popular way to access unix systems before Linux. Linux was created exactly because he was fustrated with some of the limitations of his universitiy unix server.
They're all pretty vague on privacy. I'd imagine if the police start pounding on their doors, they'll do their best to help. Can't expect anything else.
He's basically a MITM. I'm sure the way he's set it up, he can't see anything BUT he does have root access - so meh.
Man, i log into totse without anything. What's the point, i post everything on a public forum - it's no secret.