The Credit Professional Fall 2015 | Page 31

continued from page 30 to gain access to other websites—including sites that store your financial information. Protect Your Information When Using Public Wi-Fi Here’s how you can protect your information when using Wi-Fi:  When using a hotspot, log in or send personal information only to websites you know are fully encrypted. To be secure, your entire visit to each site should be encrypted—from the time you log in to the site until you log out. If you think you’re logged in to an encrypted site but find yourself on an unencrypted page, log out right away.  Don’t stay permanently signed in to accounts. When you’ve finished using an account, log out. wireless network or your phone’s data network (often referred to as 3G or 4G). If you must use an unsecured wireless network for transactions, use the company’s mobile website, where you can check for the https at the start of the web address—rather than the company’s mobile app. Don’t Assume a Wi-Fi Hotspot Is Secure Most Wi-Fi hotspots don’t encrypt the information you send over the internet and aren’t secure. In fact, if a network doesn’t require a WPA or WPA2 password, it’s probably not secure. If you use an unsecured  network to log in to an unencrypted site—or a site that uses encryption only on the sign-in page—other users on the network can see what you see and what you send. They could hijack your session and  log in as you. New hacking tools—available for free online—make this