Avoid using Public, unprotected Wi-Fi

If Wi-Fi hotspots are completely open — and don’t even require a password to access — they aren’t secure, and anybody in reach of the Wi-Fi can spy on you and see your browsing activity, searches, passwords, videos, emails, and other personal information, allowing them to steal private details and compromise your identity and online credentials.

It’s also very easy for a cybercriminal to set up a hotspot to look reputable, such as naming it ‘Starbucks’ inside of a coffee shop, or giving it an identical name to a network you frequently use. When users connect to this fake Wi-Fi hotspot and start transmitting data, all that information is immediately delivered to the cybercriminal, which is called a man-in-the-middle attack.

An easy and affordable way to maintain your security whenever you use free public Wi-Fi is to use a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN service, like Avast’s SecureLine VPN, routes all the data you're sending and receiving through a private, secure network, even when you're on a public one, making you 100% anonymous online.