Traveling with Tech: Protect Yourself Online While On-the-Go
Exploring our beautiful and fascinating world through travel is more than just an exciting adventure—it’s also an amazing way to connect with different people, cultures, and lifestyles. But travel also brings a set of unique challenges and risks, especially when it comes to safeguarding your personal information and devices.
Your neighbors at Cajun Broadband care about you and your family’s safety online, whether you’re utilizing our high-speed fiber network from your home or office, or are thousands of miles away on a business trip or enjoying the vacation of your dreams. To help keep you safe while traveling, we’ve prepared a guide to ensure you stay secure while using your tech on the go.
Common Cybersecurity Concerns and Threats
Before we look more closely at our tips to protect yourself, let’s take a moment to consider some common threats travelers may encounter when on the road. This is not intended to frighten you! Rather, to call to your mind ways cybercriminals and other unsavory characters may take advantage of tourists when their guards are down while away from home.
The most frequent security threat travelers face is when they are out and about in public spaces. Typically, this is while they’re lounging around a train or bus station or airport waiting areas, but also in other public spots like restaurants, parks, or tourist attractions. Scammers can look over your unsuspecting shoulder while you check email, browse the web, or anything else online, looking for personal information they can then attempt to use for their benefit.
Another common issue is that travelers typically use public Wi-Fi much more often when they’re away from home. Public Wi-Fi is much less secure than most home or business networks, leaving travelers more open to hacking, phishing attempts, and other cybercrimes.
Next, we’ll look at some steps you can take to keep your data and personal information more secure and safe as you travel. And we even suggest a digital solution to help keep better tabs on your whole family while you’re vacationing!
Tip 1: Utilize a Privacy Screen for Your On-the-Go Devices
We begin by recommending a basic tip to keep your privacy and information safe from prying eyes, be it in a faraway café or piazza or in your hometown’s coffee shop—affixing a privacy screen to your smartphone. Simply adding a privacy screen to your devices safeguards your own personal information and data while letting you enjoy your life away from home.
A privacy screen is little more than a thin, adhesive filter that attaches to your device’s display, restricting the view of your screen to a narrow angle. This simple addition to your smartphone or tablet’s screen makes it nearly impossible for anyone around you to see your content unless they are directly in front of the device. Just make sure your privacy screen is properly aligned with your device’s display or you won’t receive the protection you’re seeking!
You’ll feel much more comfortable reading emails, checking your online bank accounts, or filling out online forms in an airport lounge, a café, or on a cramped bus, plane, or train. Any nearby prying eyes or ne’er-do-wells won’t be able to glance at your screen and steal your information—they’ll need to move on to another tourist target who didn’t take this basic step.
Tip 2: Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Next, we consider a more complex and crucial tool for protecting your online privacy and data while traveling—a VPN. At its most basic, a VPN simply creates a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and the internet, ensuring that any data you send or receive is shielded from potential hackers or third parties in public spaces. A VPN gives you an extra layer of protection against phishing attacks, malware, and other digital threats while you’re abroad or just on the road, especially where there’s public Wi-Fi available.
Indeed, many of the places travelers frequent offer free, public Wi-Fi. Just think about all the countless people on their devices in airports, coffee shops, hotels, and other public places! But, as with most “free” things, the publicly offered Wi-Fi on these networks is often unsecured, or at least under-secured. In these vulnerable places, hackers can more easily intercept your data on these networks.
With a VPN, however, your internet connection is encrypted, making it much harder for anyone to eavesdrop on your online activity. You’ll want to do some research on reputable VPNs (there are many) and download the one that fits your needs best. Just be sure to actually download, activate, and enable the VPN, and then stay connected to it! You do yourself and your data no favors if you’re not actually using the VPN while you’re traveling.
Tip 3: Set Up Life360 for Family Tracking
Finally, we offer a tip designed to deal with another common issue families contend with while away from home—getting separated from loved ones and fellow travelers! One online tool that’s become a lifesaver for many families is Life360, a family safety app that helps keep track of everyone in your travel party.
It features real-time location sharing, helping you easily locate anyone who’s gotten out of your line of sight or earshot. Life360 can give families extra peace of mind while traveling, reassuring both you and loved ones that the app can help you find your way back to each other.
Remembering to employ some commonsense caution and vigilance is the best way to stay safe when you’re traveling—and that includes when you’re online while away from home. Our tips above will help keep your online privacy and information more secure so you can enjoy your vacation or time on the road with less anxiety.
