Wi-Fi hotspots are spreading at a record pace. As of February 18, 2013, the Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi Finder registry contained 816,810 Wi-Fi hotspots in 145 countries, topped by South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. As this industry matures, it would make sense to think that consumers would have grown savvier, more aware of hotspot risks, and more likely to take responsibility for their own security. But unfortunately, this is not the case.
According to a Public Wi-Fi Usage Survey conducted by the Identity Theft Resource Center in late 2012, 79 percent of hotspot users surveyed acknowledged that using free public Wi-Fi could lead to identity theft, but only 27 percent routinely protected their own hotspot traffic with a virtual private network (VPN). One-third of respondents did not realize that logging into a hotspot with a password did nothing to protect their data, while 44 percent either did not know or did not believe there was any way to protect data when using hotspots.
