CYBER criminals can exploit unsecured wireless networks to steal personal data or even money, a security expert has warned.
James Lyne has been scouring the streets of Edinburgh to test how safe homes, businesses and mobile phones are from rogue hackers.
He used a specially-modified bike to scan for weak and unsecured wireless (wifi) networks in the capital, in an awareness project called "warbiking".
Attackers can join wifi networks secretly and directly attack computers to steal money or information.
They can also view the websites a person has visited, read their emails and capture private information such as passwords.
"If you are a small business or a consumer and your network is wide open, anyone can connect to your network," Mr Lyne said.
"Once they have their foot in the digital door they can not only piggyback your network but also potentially launch attacks on your personal data."
The project was organised by the Scottish Business Resilience Centre and IT security company Sophos, backed by Police Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article