By Jason Steer, Menlo Security
For all of us, the media is full of hacking stories every single day detailing which organisation was attacked, what data has been stolen, how much money was stolen, and many other variations along this theme. The awareness and concern of Cyber security has never been more prominent in both organisations & consumers today.
Just last night my taxi driver home last night expressed strong informed opinions about the risks of online banking and why he still chooses to not do it even today. The facts are clear – web and email attacks remains the top 2 sources of cyber attacks today.
Simply put – never has the gap between attackers & defenders been wider. Attackers are able to attack successfully at will and the traditional technologies used to identify and thwart attacks continue to fail.
The digital generation grows by the day – almost everyone in Europe owns a smart phone and/or tablet today. The users on these devices are using apps, buying food & clothes, managing their finances, browsing the web and probably lots of other things I don’t want to know about!!
People with access to a smartphone or tablet now spend an average of 2 hours and 57 minutes on them each day, putting phones ahead of televisions as time-sucks. The TV on average gets about 2 hours and 48 minutes of attention each day now (source: Flurry). In short, digital devices for most of us contain & manage our hectic lives and we can’t do without them (myself included!!).
What’s this got to do Wi-Fi you ask? To ensure consumer devices, accounts & identities are safe & secure, hotspot providers are now rethinking what does ‘good enough’ security look. Wifi & hotspot providers now have an opportunity to differentiate from their peers by offering promising new security services such as Isolation to ensure users on their hotspots are protected from web & email threats targeting users every single day.
Wifi providers gather & collect large amounts of data which they are responsible to protect and secure; isn’t it about time they ensure consumers, their identities and devices on their wifi hotspots remain secure as well?
/Jason
For more on this story, don’t miss Jason Steer of Menlo Security at Wi-Fi NOW in Amsterdam this November 17-19. Go to this link to register now!
