Govt says using free Wi-Fi at public places should be stopped: An invitation to cyber attacks

We've seen a lot of challenges related to cybersecurity in 2017, namely the WannaCry and Petya outbreaks. But the problems go far beyond those two attacks. There have been countless unreported cases which have ultimately led to exposed records, sensitive as well as personal information, and denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

Thus security concerns are continuing to grow as organizations globally grapple with technology changes affecting them. Threats to that technology and supporting process furth continue to grow in number and sophistication. Besides, attack vectors these days involve various mediums such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud and mobile.

Having said that, government agency CERT-In has now warned users that browsing the internet using public wireless networks be at railway stations, airports or any other place may leave you vulnerable to cyber attacks. From the security incidents that have taken place in India, the agency has rated the vulnerability quotient of public Wi-Fi in the country 'high'.

CERT-In has said, "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities allows an attacker to obtain sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails etc." The Indian firm is now urging users to best avoid using public Wi-Fi networks and has suggested that users should instead use VPN (virtual private network) or wired networks.

Recently researchers led by Mathy Vanhoef a wireless security expert at KU Leuven, discovered a serious vulnerability that could allow attackers to get access to sensitive information transmitted between a Wi-Fi access point to a computer or mobile, even if the data was encrypted. Known as KRACK (short for, Key Reinstallation Attack), the flaw directly affected the WPA2 protocol, a security tool that is found in most Wi-Fi-enabled devices based on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.

The researchers have further tested this flaw practically with an attack and they found that the attack "works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks" and "41 percent of all Android devices". This is quite scary knowing that your device could be hacked anytime. But companies are working on a solution for this vulnerability.

In any case, the announcement from CERT-In comes pretty much after this incident.