Is School WiFi Safe? How to Stay Safe and Private Online

Using your laptop or smartphone at school or on college campus? You’re most likely connecting to the school’s WiFi network. Or, if you’re a wired fan – through Ethernet from your campus room. In any caseu, using school WiFi is trickier than it looks, as you have to seriously think about public WiFi security.

As you know, while you’re connected, your smartphone syncs your social media accounts, email accounts and even bank accounts via dedicated apps. You don’t want this sensitive information to be in the wrong hands.

“Is school WiFi safe?” You don’t have to avoid connecting to public WiFi hotspots, such as school WiFi. This is why it’s important to always use a VPN that will keep you safe on school WiFi networks. Read more below.

Businesses, educational institutions and public places offer free WiFi to attract customers and to provide a public service. However, most of these organizations that offer public WiFi access are not IT or cybersecurity professionals. So, WiFi security is not the focus here. These WiFi hotspots (including te ones from schools and colleges) often skip standard security practices such as:

• Securing the WiFi access either by requiring a password to connect to the WiFi hotspot, or having some sort of login or registration before accessing the Internet
• Having up-to-date firmware on their routers and other networking equipment
• Having security compliant or at least hard to guess admin usernames and passwords
• Doing periodic routine checks to see if the networks have been compromised

School WiFi networks are attractive targets for snoops and hackers because so many different people use them that they never run out of new targets. They can snoop in on the traffic and get all your social media accounts, credit card numbers, email passwords, etc.

When you’re connected to the same WiFi network as thousands of other people, your privacy is at risk. One of those people could snoop on your traffic to get your sensitive data. The real world solution to school WiFi security issues is to use a VPN to protect your online data.

Tip: Protect yourself when accessing the Internet from campus WiFi networks – use a VPN!

One of the issues of standard VPNs for school WiFi security is they slow down your web traffic. They can even make the internet almost unusable because of the way they’re built.

Also, most VPN solutions remain inactive after your Internet connection drops for whatever reason. This can happen while roaming between WiFi hotspots, for example.

Tip: Choose a bonding VPN to get fast and stable Internet.

Speedify is different among VPNs. It solves both security and speed concerns. By using channel bonding technology, Speedify can combine all available Internet connections simultaneously. 

You will be protected from compromised WiFi networks. It even works if you have to go through a captive portal (login page). Speedify also keeps your data safe from the prying eyes of hackers, ISPs, and even the hosts of the network.

Speedify also has auto failover. When it detects a WiFi signal is weak or spotty – it reroutes all the data through the working connection(s). This gives you a smooth, uninterrupted Internet experience. Once the connection is available again, Speedify automatically tosses it back into the mix.