New Delhi: Sensitive information such as bank details, personal images and videos of about 96% of Indians is at risk while using public WiFi, a report by Norton by Symantec said on Tuesday.
Consumers’ temptation for using free internet put them at risk. According to the ‘Norton WiFi Risk Report 2017’ by Symantec, reports GN.
“There is a deep divide between what people think is safe when it comes to using public WiFi versus the reality,” said Ritesh Chopra, country manager of Consumer Business Unit, Symantec, in a statement.
“What someone thinks are private on their personal device can easily be accessed by cyber criminals through insecure Wi-Fi Networks or even apps with privacy vulnerabilities,” he added.
As per a report, 73% of Indians will do or swap something for a strong WiFi signal including watching a three minute advertisement (35%), to something as critical as allowing access to personal emails (19%), personal photographs (22%), online dating profiles (16%), contact lists (19%) and giving permission to access and even edit personal social media profiles (19%).
The report also revealed 31% Indians use public Wi-Fi for viewing explicit or suggestive contents, of which 44% admit to doing so at work and 49% in hotels.
However, the report suggests measures to ensure security over the web which includes using Virtual Private Network (VPN) and looking for ‘HTTPS’ (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) in the web addresses while visiting a website.