Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Myers
I have found that the hotspot on your cell phone to be best, not only when you have a good signal, but from a security standpoint also.
There are a lot of hacks when you log on to a private WiFi service. When you log in to your hotspot on your phone, the security is YOURS, not some campground that may be rebroadcasting your information.
I am not saying all campgrounds are this way, but I have run into my share of the insecure ones. Good luck!
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...please don't think of any of the following as presumptuous, but my career is in IT security so I kinda know this part
A cell phone hotspot is not necessarily secure and I would not advise anyone to connect to sensitive company information without adding additional security.The security on your cellphone is not yours either, it is managed by the cellphone provider.
I do agree that campground wifi is not secure, but I would add that ALL campground wifi is not secure. While some may have "better wifi" with a very basic level of security added, if I have to access campground wifi directly from a device, I try to use it only for web surfing or netflix.
The best way to approach security is to assume there is none, and that you need to add your own layers of protection as appropriate.
The Ubiquiti Aircube solution I recommended above is a commercial level of wifi security but still provides just the basics. Some of those basics go beyond what a cellphone hotspot would typically provide.
For the layers of security that the Ubiquiti Aircube does provide it is really quite robust and difficult to hack, and it is more secure than products such as the popular Alpha CampPro products, to use one example.
But there are many other layers of security that are not addressed by the Ubiquiti solution (or PepWave or Winegard, etc) that could allow someone to see or even access your information. A simple example might be to compare a good wifi router to a stout steel front door with a great lock, so the hacker won't even try to break into it... but if they see that you left a key under the mat for the back door, they would take advantage of that instead... hackers live in a world where they make thousands of attempts to quickly access as much as they can in as short a time as possible -they do get information and they can sell it on the darkweb, but often the return is pennies per piece of information.
So, security is then always a balance of 3 things; cost, convenience and security. If you need more security it will raise cost and may reduce convenience. (if you've ever used MFA -multi factor authentication- you will know what I mean)
If you are accessing internet for personal email, web surfing, netflix, youtube, etc, then a wifi router or cellphone hotspot will likely be adequate. (but IMHO they are not truly "secure" by definition). But if you want to do work that involves regularly accessing sensitive company data, I would suggest you are putting yourself and your company at risk unless you work with an IT security professional to assess what other layers of security should be added.
Hope that is helpful!
Brad