Beth. And I just got back home from Destin, Florida, where we attended a fantastic workshop on communications and public speaking. David Rendell, award winning speaker and author of The Freak Factor, spent two full days helping a group of I.T. and cybersecurity professionals refine and better develop our communications and public speaking skills. I'm definitely going to be able to use this training to express myself much better. So thank you, David. Now, you might ask, how does this relate to cybersecurity? Most of the time, free wi-fi is offered for attendees of this type of event, and this training was no exception. One of the first things the organizer told us was the wi-fi name to look for and the password to access it. Normally I advise against using free wi-fi anywhere, but it's now offered in airports, railroad stations, many stores, restaurants, and most hotels almost everywhere. So it's hard to avoid the big problem in these areas. That is cybercriminals can set up an evil twin to capture your connection and potentially steal your information. Evil twin is a wireless access point that has a similar name to a legitimate one but has a stronger signal so that you can connect to it quickly and suddenly you're compromised. Now let's circle back to the room full of I.t. And cybersecurity professionals I was part of. How do you think we reduced or avoided the risk of connecting to the free wi-fi? Now, I didn't ask anyone else in the room what they were doing to protect themselves, but here are two of the very best ways. If your company has one set up, please use your company's VPN. Using a company, VPN or virtual private network will usually protect you and your data, even if an evil twin environment is in play. Another great way to protect yourself is to turn on your phone's wi-fi hotspot that uses your cellular network For the internet connection. You can get a separate wi fi hotspot as well, so do accordingly. Please follow the lead of a bunch of i.t and cybersecurity professionals this holiday season to protect yourselves.
