Checklist for safe Laptop use in Public?

Rockrz

OK, I saw a TV spot on the news where they were talking about the dangers of using your laptop to surf the net in public using a hotspot.

They were saying that scammers often setup fake hotspots to try to lure you into connecting to them so they can do bad things to you like get into your system to steal data or maybe install spy programs, etc....OR, some may have ways or trying to break into your system while connected to the net using a hotspot.

So, this got me to thinking...is there some sort of checklist of things that can be done to protect your computer from being hacked while using a public hotspot?

I've installed AVG Internet Security on my laptop which has firewall and anti-virus. But, aren't there some settings I should change to make my system harder to hack into?

Let me know if anybody knows of anything that would go on a list of things to do to a laptop before taking it out in public. Thanks.

broady81

To be fair, my advice would be to only use hotspots you can trust - I suppose it depends where you usually connect - In a cafe for example, that should be fine as long as your sure the network belongs to them. You could also have a look at disabling some unnecessary services and areas of exploit in XP, if you wish to be extra careful : SafeXP would be a good start - Hope this helps :smiles:

Rockrz

broady81 wrote:

You could also have a look at disabling some unecessary services and areas of exploit in XP, if you wish to be extra careful

Yes, extra careful seems to be the way to go anymore.

I'll check out the link. Thanks!

Your-Amish-Daddy

I always recommend installing peer guardian.

Rockrz

Got a link for this program, so I can check it out?

Your-Amish-Daddy

Here you go, lazy.PG2