Forget Hillary's email server, Republicans use phony 'I vote Trump!' Wi-Fi hotspots!
Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination at the RNC tonight, meaning he is now officially their candidate for president. Most likely, Hillary Clinton will secure the Democrat nomination, so we can expect to hear Trump's criticism of her private email server usage for the next several months leading up to the election.
While Hillary Clinton's private email server usage was against the rules and wrong, it seems she is not the only one in politics demonstrating poor judgement regarding technology and security. It turns out, many Republican delegates are also lax in this regard, by connecting to non-secure Wi-Fi hotspots.
"This week, Avast security researchers conducted an exciting, unique experiment at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to demonstrate how risky it can be to connect to public Wi-Fi. The experiment revealed that over a thousand convention attendees were negligent in their behavior when connecting to public Wi-Fi at the event. Attendees risked the possibility of being spied on and hacked by cybercriminals while they used online banking services, social media, dating apps, and even while they played Pokémon Go", says Gracie Roberts, Avast.
Roberts further says, "over the course of a day, Avast saw more than 1.6Gbs transferred from more than 1,200 users. Moreover, 68.3 percent of users‘ identities were exposed when they connected, and 44.5 percent of Wi-Fi users checked their emails or chatted via messenger apps".
Avast shares the following statistics.
- 55.9 percent had an Apple device, 28.4 percent had an Android device, 1.5 percent had a Windows Phone device, 3.4 percent had a MacBook laptop and 10.9 percent had a different device
- 10.8 percent used Google Chrome, 0.2 percent Mozilla Firefox and 4.2 percent Safari
- 39.7 percent have the Facebook or Facebook messenger app installed, 10.7 percent have the Twitter app installed, 8.0 percent have Instagram installed
- 13.1 percent accessed Yahoo Mail, 17.6 percent checked their Gmail inbox, and 13.8 percent used chat apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and Skype
- 6.5 percent shopped on Amazon, and 1.2 percent accessed a banking app or banking websites like bankofamerica.com, usbank.com, or wellsfargo.com
- 5.1 percent played Pokémon Go
- 4.2 percent visited government domains or websites
- 0.7 percent used dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, OKCupid, Match and Meetup
- 0.24 percent visited pornography sites like Pornhub.com
Yikes. Not only did these Republican delegates connect to risky Wi-Fi, but they accessed things like email and government websites while using it. As many of these same people decry Hillary Clinton's private email server, they should perhaps take a look inwards and realize their behavior is dangerous too. The old saying goes, when you point a finger at someone, you have three more pointing back at you.
What do you think of Avast's experiment and findings? Tell me in the comments.
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