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Check out what’s coming to the Crowne Plaza, InterContinental, and Holiday Inn hotels — free WiFi — and you don’t even need a room key to hop online! But is it safe? And what can you do to protect your online security? Click to read the article and find out more. Read More
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emailThe 3 Riskiest Online Mistakes Travelers Make Every Holiday Season
Posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
Skim any travel website this holiday season and you’re bound to find an article or two about online security and traveling. The articles certainly raise awareness of the precarious security situation while in airports and hotels, but they also generally fall short in a few ways.
Read more to learn three tips that supplement any on-the-road security plan to safeguard your sensitive personal information and avoid having your identity (or credit card number) stolen this month. Read More
FTC Sues Wyndham for Failing to Protect Hotel Guests’ Sensitive Personal Data
Posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Wyndham Worldwide Corporation and three of its subsidiaries for alleged data-security failures and weak security systems.
Even after the hotel chain’s first-known data breach in 2008, Wyndham failed to fix its massive security vulnerabilities, alleges the FTC.
As a result, Wyndham’s security was breached two more times in less than two years. Read More
CNN Misses the Mark in Reporting of Personal VPNS, Travel, Cyber-Crime
Posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
Using a personal virtual private network is the only way to guard your privacy at a public WiFi hotspot, yet CNN missed a significant opportunity to point out this simple fact in its recent reporting on travel-related cyber-crime.
Other mainstream media — such as The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and the Chicago Sun-Times (in their words: “Well, why are you sending data in clear text over open networks, anyway? You should never ever do that”) — have heartily endorsed the use of a personal VPN like Private WiFi.
Yet in its recent post, CNN acknowledged that the best approach for business travelers when using public WiFi is to remotely log into their employers’ VPN. Read More
FBI: Beware Of Malware Installed Via Hotel Networks
Posted on Friday, May 11th, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
Forbes featured an in-depth article this week about the risks inherent in hotel wireless networks. It highlights the importance of using a personal virtual private network (VPN).
The article includes new warnings from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center — for example, tips such as “download software updates direct from the vendor’s website” — but the Forbes writer opines further and offers the following words of advice:
In addition to this, I would recommend that all important information — including, but not limited to, emails, documents, IMs and web logins — is sent over secure HTTP or a VPN.
Free WiFi At Disney Hotels, But Less-Than-Magical Online Privacy Issues Remain
Posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 by Elaine Rigoli
When Disney executives polled more than 10,000 hotel guests about which amenities they would most like to see added to all Disney hotels, free WiFi connectivity topped guests’ wishlists.
So crews rewired the resort’s hotels — including the cabins in Disney’s Fort Wilderness campground — and completed the work last month. While it may seem like a magical perk to hotel guests, real privacy dangers lurk in the background. Read More
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Ask the Expert: The Year in Review
Posted on Monday, December 19th, 2011 by Kent Lawson
I have enormously enjoyed writing the “Ask the Expert” column this past year.
I started this column because I’m passionate about online security, and I wanted to share with you all that I’ve learned. Since we are near the end of the year, I thought it would be good to provide you with a reference of all the columns I have written. Read More
Are Your Shared Files At Risk on a Hotel Wifi Network?
Posted on Monday, November 21st, 2011 by Kent Lawson
One of the things we’re always told to do when using public wifi in a hotel (or any other place) is to turn off file sharing. Okay, that sounds like a smart thing to do, but what exactly does it entail? And can someone on the same wifi network we are on actually access our files? Click the headline above to find out what you need to do before your next hotel stay! Read More
Survey: Business Travelers at Increased Risk of Hotel Hacking, Identity Theft
Posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 by Elaine Rigoli
A report from British insurance company Willis Group Holdings says business travelers who book hotel rooms online are putting themselves at risk. The survey found that insurance claims for data theft worldwide jumped 56% last year, with a bigger number of those attacks targeting the hospitality industry. In fact, 38% of all cyber attacks were aimed at hotels, resorts, and tour companies. Click the headline above to read more. Read More
Hotel Guests More Likely to Be Credit Card Hacking Victims
Posted on Thursday, August 11th, 2011 by Elaine Rigoli
Did you know that 38% of all credit-card hacking involves hotels? CreditDonkey.com, a credit-card comparison site, says this figure outnumbers the incidents of credit card fraud at restaurants/bars (13%), retail stores (14.2%), and the financial sector (19%). In just one example from its new report, CreditDonkey shows how pervasive — and expensive — the problem is for hotel guests. In one 3-month-long hacking incident, credit card information was stolen from 700 hotel guests, resulting in losses averaging from $2,000 to $3,000 per credit card account. Charles Tran, founder of CreditDonkey, says it’s “foolish” to think our electronic data is safe. Click above to read the entire article — and see the CreditDonkey infographic that may keep you from enjoying a restful night’s sleep in a hotel ever again. Read More