Make no mistake, if you do not utilize a VPN when using public internet or a foreign Wi-Fi connection, while you might not be hacked every time, you are certainly rolling the dice with your personal security. This is because once you are on
Make no mistake, if you do not utilize a VPN when using public internet or a foreign Wi-Fi connection, while you might not be hacked every time, you are certainly rolling the dice with your personal security. This is because once you are on a shared network your computer becomes visible to anyone else using that network. Shared network connections also make it exponentially easier for hackers to find, hack and even remotely access any devices shared by that network. The more open the network, the more people that use it and the more public the place, the greater your risks are.
Regardless if you are using your own internet connection or you’re in a foreign country, a good anti-virus software and strong firewall rules should detect and/or block any file changes to your systems, preventing an attack from infecting and spreading on your device. Therefore, purchasing good anti-virus software is the simplest thing you can do to protect your computer, especially when traveling abroad or foreign/un-trusted connections. A good anti-virus should only cost you around $40 a year, well worth the price for the protection it provides. As for your computer’s firewalls, you can freely adjust these settings by simply typing “firewall” into your computers search menu – more on that later on.
It is important to note that an anti-virus program will only prevent an attack from spreading on your device. When it comes to preventing an attack from finding your device in the first place, this is where a “Virtual Private Network,” commonly referred to as a “VPN,” comes into play. For those of you whom might be unfamiliar, VPN’s work by redirecting all of your “internet traffic” through a “proxy server” – allowing you to access the internet from an end-point you desire/trust.
While this might sound like incredibly complicated “computer lingo,” it is actually quite simple to understand. Say you make your home in New Hampshire, but you are traveling to Egypt. A VPN will allow you to connect to the internet in Egypt, then use that connection to find and connect to your home’s Wi-Fi router – transferring everything you do online through it, rather than through some random router in the middle of Egypt. Once connected, the location of your computers “IP Address” and your internet activity will remain hidden/encrypted behind your home router; aka your VPN.
To put it another way, even when you use a Wi-Fi connection in Egypt, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, your computer will only be physically accessing “the Internet” from New Hampshire. So, even when you are using the internet on the ground in Egypt, it will be as if you were on your computer back at home – because you will literally be using the same network connection in either instance.
There are two different ways you can go about setting up a safe and secure VPN or Proxy Server for your computer. The first will cost you money, but is far s