The rate at which hackers and scammers have been “winning” of late causes me to compare their operations to that of a legitimate and established entity.

With so many people falling prey to their schemes, I can’t help but think that they must have in place functional teams such as recruitment/human resourcing, innovation and creativity, finance, research, marketing and, of course, call centre services. Not to mention a highly skilled technical team with a steadfast chief technical officer leading the charge. All this must also be collaborated through a series of periodic meetings, including board level, to shape their strategies. Otherwise, how could they be so successful in their plots?

Consider yourself smart or lucky if you or someone you know isn’t already one of their loyal customers being offered services such as debit/credit card management or email/social media account administration, to name a few. One of their sources of personal information is the Internet and the ways in which people connect to it.

Though the focus of this article is on protecting your information when using public Wi-Fi, it is important to understand that the tips listed below are applicable to any Internet access source, even from your home or office.

Here are some relatively simple ways to protect yourself from perpetrators, both locally and abroad: 1) Know who to trust

Connect to a trusted source, and if there is something different about the look and feel of the Wi-Fi name or pop-up that you normally access, follow your instinct and be very wary that it may be a hack attempt.

Hackers can turn on a hot spot device with a tempting or seemingly trustworthy description such as “Free Wi-Fi” or “Starbucks Wi-Fi”. If you connect, they gain visibility to your browsing activity or personal information on your device. Whatever they can’t access, they can seek via a pop-up window, requesting data such as email, TRN or phone number.

Technology entities such as Growth-Tech are more knowledgeable of potential threats and know how to put in place added security measure. They have put in place, for example ,client encryption tunnels which privatises your Wi-Fi session and hide users from potential threats; they also ensure that their access web pages are privatised, as explained below. 2) Stick to HTTPS websites

When browsing webpages, stick to websites that begin with “https”, especially if you are inputting personal information. Https means that there is an encrypted layer between the web page and your browser, making it difficult for hackers to intercept. Regardless of whether or not it is https, it is important not to visit websites that have suspicious names or pop up on other websites on their own, or when you click somewhere on the page.

3) Don’t give away too much info

Requests for generic info like your age group or gender is not considered personal. Anyone can see from a mile away that you are between x and y age and they can make a reasonable guess of your gender. However, if asked to provide any of the below on a website or Wi-Fi connection, please be wary that it could be a scam:

• Your birth date or government ID number

• Your location or places you live or visit

• Any of your login usernames or passwords

• Your bank account or credit/debit card info

• Any of the above for a family member or friend.

Contact information such as phone number or email is usually requested by many Wi-Fi providers and is typically to advertise products and services to you in future that may be of interest. A useful trick is to create a separate email address for this purpose or any other online recreational purpose. This makes it totally separate from the email address associated with your bank account, business transactions, social media, or any other personal matters. It may even be totally unrelatable to you, for example yardman876@email.com.

4) Be careful what you download

If you download an app and it is asking for all sorts of access such as your call records, your location, your text messages (and the list goes on), it potentially is not worth the exposure. If you are downloading a game and it asks for all this, why give it access to your camera or microphone? It could be a plot.

5) Avoid Short cuts

Some Wi-Fi providers, apps or websites allow (or mandate) you to login to their platform using your social media or Google account to make things faster and easier for you. I advise against doing this, unless it’s your recreational email being used, as you are unaware if they have motives or have themselves been compromised.

Neil H Lawrence is the CEO of Growth-Tech, a technological company and leading Wi-Fi provider in Jamaica with a vision to see connectivity, like oxygen, available to everyone everywhere. He can be contacted at 876 946 9776 or by email at