City cops to crack down on owners using unsecured Wi-Fi

THANE: In order to make residents aware about the misuse of unsecured Wi-Fi, the Thane police along with the Thane Municipal Corporation and voluntary groups have flagged off a campaign advocating safe use of internet.
The campaign involves several teams that will be fanned across the city and check the Wi-Fi connections at cafe joints, malls, shopping complexes as well as colleges.
If any connection is found to be unsecured then they will be made aware of the drawbacks that can land anyone in trouble, especially the Wi-Fi
owner.
The cases of misuse of public Wi-Fi is increasing by the day. The latest one being a woman whose credit card details were hacked and a huge sum was debited from her account for a purchase she had never made.
‘‘Public Wi-Fi is absolutely unsafe and some third person, who is a professional hacker, is quick to pounce on the data that we so carelessly punch in. Most people visit malls, restaurants and coffee shops that offer free Wi-Fi. It is a risky affair to perform a financial transactions using a public Wi-Fi as it won’t take time for a hacker to get all the personal details,’’ said a senior Thane police officer.
A police official said that Wi-Fi is one of the easiest ways to hack into and the owner will not even know about it.
The police officer informed that if they find any insecure Wi-Fi connection they will issue a notice to the owner as a warning.