How a Captive Portal Login Interferes with Wi-Fi Security

A captive portal login is a web page where users accessing a network are automatically redirected to. It usually lists the terms and conditions for using the network and can also require a username and password to log in. 

If you’ve been into a public WiFi, you’ll know that you have to enter the information that they need. It can be your email address, phone number, etc. But, most of them requires you to agree into some agreement just to use their WiFi facility. This is the case for some public WiFi like hotels, coffee shops, school, or even work networks.

Network administrators use captive portal login pages for the following purposes:

• Manage the bandwidth, duration, and even the number of users in your WiFi network.
• Make sure that you have a good quality of internet connection by preventing illegal users from joining the WiFi network.
• Captive portals paired up with the server system, can track all the users who have accessed the network. Under this condition, you can prevent, reject, or kick unwanted and suspicious users from your network

No more experiencing slow internet connection because some users are hogging (taking advantage of) the WiFi network.

Yes, they do. Wi-Fi networks with captive portals / Wi-Fi splash screens (“Before we let you connect, you have to agree to our terms of use” pages) announce a default route that is by default out of service. They hijack your DNS requests to point to their entry web server. As a result, they mess with your browser tabs, confuse update managers and may require you to turn off DNSSEC and VPNs.

Furthermore, public internet isn’t always secured! Attackers can gain backdoor entry to the network. This gives them the capability to steal sensitive data, such as your personal information, along with a multitude of other malicious acts.

An interesting attack scenario has recently been demonstrated by one of the renowned hackers, Jayson Street, who said all it is needed is to walk around with the right device to get into someone’s device. So, whenever you’re on public internet, make sure that you’re using a VPN! Even when connecting to the network from the captive portal login page.

As explained above, whenever you access a public Wi-Fi with a captive portal login and you’re using a VPN, you have to disconnect the VPN. If you’re using Speedify bonding VPN as the VPN:

1. Speedify will show you a notification asking you if you want to login
2. Other services / apps (like Skype / Slack calls) will continue to work on one of the other active connections – e.g. cellular on your smartphone
3. If you click the notification, (or the message in the app) it will pop up the login screen in a window.
4. When you login successfully, Speedify will immediately start using the wifi.

And it’s not just that! Speedify uses a ChaCha- or AES-based encryption algorithm depending on device support. Not even the most experienced hackers could snoop on the traffic going through our VPN servers. 

Speedify is the only VPN that works seamlessly with captive portal login pages. And it provides fast, stable and secure Internet by combining multiple Internet connections at once. What are you waiting for?