With the news all abuzz about the standoff between the FBI and Apple, a lot of people are worried about cyber security — or in the case of USA Today columnist Steven Petrow and many others like him, a lot of people are wondering what cyber security really means to average folks.
Well, Petrow got a huge wakeup call on a recent flight when a fellow passenger stopped him to tell him that during the flight, he’d hacked Petrow’s computer.
Petrow writes for USA Today that after the flight, a passenger pulled him aside and asked him if he was a reporter and wondered if he was interested in the FBI/Apple story. When Petrow wondered why the passenger would ask such a questions, he replied: “I hacked your email on the plane and read everything you sent and received. I did it to most people on the flight.”
Petrow says the passenger the repeated emails that he had written back to him almost verbatim.
Petrow was using American Airlines’ popular Gogo inflight service and, upon talking to the company’s VP of Communications, found that the service is public like most Wi-Fi hotspots on the ground. Petrow says he was warned against “accessing sensitive materials while in flight.”
For more on Petrow’s story, click here. For business travelers or anyone who frequently uses flight time to catch up on work or any other email correspondence you might want to keep private, Petrow collected some valuable information to help protect yourself electronically.
- Call your representatives in Congress and on a statewide level and express your support for Apple in this case. Here’s a list of all U.S. members of the House and Senate. https://www.congress.gov/members
- Make sure your devices are using their built-in encryption features. That’s FileVault for Apple devices and BitLocker on Windows products.
- Use a password manager to help you create and store different — and strong — passwords for all your accounts. Don’t use the same password repeatedly, and don’t ever use passwords like “password” or “123456.” Some popular ones include DashLane, LastPass, and Sticky Password.
- Download WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal, messaging apps that go great distances in encrypting voice and electronic messages. Keep in mind that even they are not 100% secure.
