Cyber security: are cafés safe workplaces?

Wi-Fi has given us the freedom to work where we want, but how secure is that hotspot at your favourite café? It could be time to turn to 4G instead

Until recently, mobile workers who had to send large amounts of data had no option. It had to be public Wi-Fi hotspots in coffee shops, restaurants and airports. Data speeds simply weren’t fast enough to use a phone network for sending and receiving large files.

The security risks, however, remain huge. A company’s data and its clients’ data can easily be compromised.

Sam Title, who runs Canada-based The Coffice, says that for people working out of coffee shops – “coffices” – there is “no such thing as privacy or security”.

“A coffice Wi-Fi network will always give your company’s IT department the willies,” Mr Title wrote recently.

“You might be 1,000 per cent convinced of a coffice Wi-Fi connection’s security, while the 19-year-old hacker in the apartment upstairs is happily siphoning off your personal information.”

Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Using 4G, download speeds are now up to 60 megabits per second – probably double the speed you can expect using a public Wi-Fi hotspot, especially in busy periods when a lot of people are sharing the network.

Another key advantage for businesses is that 4G is more secure than public Wi-Fi, but should be used with an EE security solution that protects data going over the network and on the device.

Of course, staff working in public always risk others being able to read their screen and files they are sending by peering over their shoulder if they are using 4G or Wi-Fi. But there is a far greater threat posed by public Wi-Fi: the risk private data can be hacked without the mobile worker realising.

The EU’s law enforcement agency Europol goes further, saying that people should “avoid sending or receiving sensitive data over public Wi-Fi because it is at risk of being intercepted by hackers”.

Sourse: telegraph.co.uk