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Posts Tagged ‘wireless’

Do you need a VPN for Secure Email in a Wireless Hotspot?

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014

LuxSci has been approached by many people asking for VPN (Virtual Private Network) services.  When we ask them why, they indicate that they use wireless hotspots (like at Starbucks and other public places) that are insecure and untrusted and they want to be sure that their email is secure and encrypted there.*

Note that even if the hotspot is password protected and “secure”, that does not mean that it is “trusted”.  The hot stop administrators or other users of that hotspot could still try to intercept your Internet traffic.  So, just because it is a “secure” hotspot with the little lock next to it and a password that you must enter, do not assume you are safe at all.

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Tags: eavesdropping, email security, hotspot, imap, pop, secure email, smtp, ssl, tls, vpn, webmail, wireless
Posted in LuxSci Library: Security and Privacy
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Email and Text Messaging Security in the Wired and Wireless Worlds

Thursday, August 1st, 2002

International Lecture by Dr. Erik Kangas

“Internet email, Internet instant messaging, and mobile short text messaging are related in that they enable communications by pushing messages from sender to recipient over generally insecure networks. The security issues and vulnerabilities inherent in all three modes of communication are also very similar. This talk will review standard security threats associated with electronic messaging in general, and their common remedies including symmetric and asymmetric key encryption, digital signatures, and message authentication codes. Next, a detailed exposition of the security vulnerabilities inherent in all phases of Internet email delivery will be examined and solutions such as S/MIME, Authentication, and Transport Layer Security (TLS) will be discussed. After a brief look of the serious issues involved with public Instant Messaging services such as AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and ICQ, the Short Messaging System (SMS) over the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) will be examined. We will review the current security protocols used by GSM and identify the vulnerabilities to SMS. Finally, several ways that GSM or SMS could be extended or modified to ensure the security and privacy of SMS messages, even in a multi-vendor mobile environment, will be proposed.”

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Tags: asymmetric key encryption, encryption, GSM, Helsinki, hiit, s/mime, security, text messaging, tls, wired, wireless
Posted in Mobile
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