Public Wi-Fi is table stakes, and unsecured Wi-Fi is risky business

While public Wi-FI can be very convenient, both for users and providers, it also introduces a number of security challenges. Unsecured or under-secured public Wi-Fi networks can expose users to cyber threats like identity theft, financial fraud and data breaches. Once they are connected, attackers can monitor all traffic, extract sensitive data, and even inject and spread malware.

DNS queries are fundamental to the functionality of the internet; every time you access a website, you’re sending a DNS query. Some of these can be malicious. In fact, an average internet user might access as many as 5,000 DNS queries a day and up to five of those might be malicious. That’s equivalent to 1,825 incidents per year. A malicious query can be a wide range of activities, from phishing to ransomware to cryptojacking. Often, these queries take the form of redirecting traffic from a legitimate website to a similarly named malicious website.