FIFA WORLD CUP - 2018 COUNTDOWN : Danger lurks at 20% Wi-Fi hot-spots

 Moscow: If you are visiting Russia for the World Cup matches starting from Thursday, think twice before using open Wi-Fi networks.

A new research from Russia-based cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab on Tuesday warned that more than 20 per cent of Wi-Fi hot-spots in the host cities do not use traffic encryption, making them potentially unsafe for use by football fans visiting the cities.

The results suggest that football fans should take care of their personal data, especially while using open Wi-Fi connections around the FIFA World Cup games. 

"The lack of traffic encryption, coupled with large-scale events -- like the FIFA World Cup -- make wireless Wi-Fi networks a target for criminals who want easy access to user data," Denis Legezo, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said in a statement. Global events always result in a concentration of people connecting to networks to upload posts, stay in touch with loved ones, and share the fun with others.

Kaspersky Lab said its findings are based on an analysis of public Wi-Fi spots in 11 FIFA World Cup 2018 host cities, including Saransk, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Volgograd, Moscow, Ekaterinburg, Sochi, Rostov, Kaliningrad, and St Petersburg. 

The results showed that so far not all wireless access points have encryption and authentication algorithms - aspects that are essential for Wi-Fi networks to remain secure.