So I’m sitting in a shopping centre in, let’s say Mumbai, and I decide to check my bank balance. I get out my Tablet and log in to a free Wifi hotspot, I have my VPN activated, so I feel confident my bank details will be safe. Unfortunately I’ve logged in to a fake hotspot. Will the VPN save the day, or will I be drained of my cash?
BTW, I’m using PIA VPN.
A VPN is encrypted from your system to the VPN endpoint, so you should be OK. Even if the hotspot is snooping on your traffic, they just see an encrypted connection to the VPN server.
This is what I thought, but I asked the question to see what some of the experts on this site had to say.
If I were in that situation and had to do a bank transaction like that online, which I’m assuming I wouldn’t have to do often, I would find a wired internet connection to use. Such as in a public library or internet cafe if those are available. I wouldn’t trust it to WiFi if I had the slightest concern about security.
If you are using WiFi to simply surf the web and e-mail friends to tell them about your travels I would be less concerned about security.
With WiFi it doesn’t matter if it’s a fake or legit hotspot, there is always a way to capture the data being exchanged on the network even if not easily decoded. But with a wired connection going through ethernet, you don’t have to be worried about this happening.
It might be possible for someone even on a wired ethernet connection to capture your data too, but they would have to be a valid user on the system to begin with. In other words, a secure network that’s wired wouldn’t allow people to use their own laptops, they would have to use what is available on the work station and that would give an additional protected secure for you. Think of a public work station in a public library, for example, there are no hacking tools on it, nor can you install them to attempt to do anything because it doesn’t allow this kind of access for the legit logged in user.
In Summary: If you are concerned, use wired ethernet connections only. I would also talk to the bank and ask them if someone committed fraud like you are concerned about what measure would they take and would methods are there to recover the funds. I have a friend who lost his ATM card and an unauthorized user took cash out of their account. By contacting the bank immediately they were able to get the money credited back to them pending an investigation.