14 DAY TRIAL // During this year's Mobile World Congress that's being held between February 22 and February 25 in Barcelona, Spain, Avast Software, maker of multiple desktop and mobile security tools, conducted an interesting experiment.
The company's security experts set up three open WiFi networks near the Mobile World Congress registration booth at the Barcelona airport.
These WiFi spots were given innocent-looking names such as "Starbucks," "MWC Free WiFi," and "Airport_Free_Wifi_AENA."
More than 2,000 users recklessly connected to these WiFi spots
In just four hours, researchers were surprised that more than 2,000 users connected to these hotspots based solely on their name (SSID), throwing all security practices to the side just for the sake of free Internet access.
To prove their point on how easy it is to hack a public WiFi network and snoop on its traffic, researchers logged traffic and provided the following results.
61.7% of all users searched the Web via Google or accessed their Gmail account. 14.9% accessed a Yahoo! site, 2% listened to music via Spotify, and 1% browsed a dating app, such as Tinder or Badoo.
Further, 52.5% of users had the Facebook app installed while Twitter was only used by 2.4% of the people that were passing through the airport.
Researchers also noticed that 50.1% of people used Apple devices, 43.4% used Androids, while Windows Phone was found only on 6.5% of all devices.
Even worse, researchers say that they could identify details about each device and its user in 63.5% of all the traffic.
No data was stored, but merely analyzed and categorized for statistical purposes.
Mobile users should use a VPN on public WiFi connections
"Many individuals recognize that surfing over open Wi-Fi isn’t secure," explains Gagan Singh, President of Mobile at Avast. "With most Mobile World Congress visitors traveling from abroad, it’s not surprising to see that many opt to connect to free Wi-Fi in order to save money, instead of using data roaming services."
Avast and many other security companies recommend that users install a mobile VPN service when surfing the Web via public WiFi connections.
These apps help users anonymize traffic and keep the user's browsing habits hidden from prying eyes. Since Avast bothered with this experiment, you can give its Android and iOS VPN apps a go and see if they're to your liking.