Skycure’s Tips for Safe Mobile WiFi Networking During the Holidays

Some free Mall WiFi connections are more dangerous than others, but mobile device users need to be extra careful about connecting during the holiday season.

Skycure evaluated shopping malls across the United States and found some to be riskier than others. The Fashion Show mall in Las Vegas was ranked as the riskiest, as it had the highest number of potentially malicious WiFi access points that were detected by Skycure. But the remaining nine were in major population centers across the United States, including Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and Minnesota.

While consumers might be tempted to connect to free WiFi access points, 10 percent of malicious networks have the word “free” in their name, Skycure found.

There are multiple instances of malicious shopping apps designs to steal identification and financial information from consumers. While malicious apps can find their way into legitimate app stores, it is less likely the apps are malicious, as both Google and Apple are always checking apps to help protect users.

To help limit the risk of potential threat, it’s important for users to always update their mobile operating systems to the most current version.

Users are advised not to jailbreak Apple mobile devices or root Android smartphones, as it exposes devices to greater risks. Skycure’s analysis found that, overall, the number of jailbroken and rooted devices remains relatively low.

Skycure found that the risk to mobile devices increases the longer the device is on a network. Within the first month of being connected to a network, 19.5 percent of devices will be exposed some form of threat, with that risk growing to 46.4 percent by the fourth month.

Even before users head to a shopping mall, more than half of all devices already are at medium-to-risk, according to Skycure. Risky devices are those that are under cyber-attack or already have been compromised. Skycure’s risk score takes into account user behavior, device vulnerabilities and configuration settings.