The aviation industry is growing, thanks to millions of passengers traveling around the world. According to Statista, in 2017, 36.8 million flights were operated worldwide while the Bureau of Transportation Statistics revealed that in 2017, U.S.-based airlines transported over 746 million passengers to and from airports across the country.
For the airports, it is an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and make a hefty profit by providing travelers the most comfortable experience possible and one thing that can make things worth it is a secure WiFi connection at the airport which can be used by travelers to keep in touch with their contacts and also keep an eye on their work-related stuff. For this purpose, here is a map that shows free WiFi passwords from airports worldwide.
However, a place where millions of people come in and connect to WiFi spots; it also makes it a lucrative target for malicious hackers and cybercriminals. For this, here is a tool that can help you identify fake and malicious WiFi spots. But the threat still prevails since most of the people are ill-informed when it comes to cybersecurity or keeping their online presence secure.
According to research compiled by Coronet, a cybersecurity company it has been revealed that public WiFi spots at 45 busiest airports in the United States pose a massive security and privacy threat to travelers.
“To identify the airports with the greatest cyber risk, Coronet collected data from more than 250,000 consumer and corporate endpoints that traveled through America’s 45 busiest airports over the course of five months. Coronet then analyzed the data, which consisted of both device vulnerabilities and WiFi network risks captured from our threat protection platform.”
Here is a list of 10 most vulnerable airports in the United States along with their Threat Index Score (TSI):
1. San Diego International Airport (San Diego) – TSI: 10
2. John Wayne Orange County Airport (Santa Ana, Calif) – TSI: 8.7
3. William P Hobby Airport (Houston) – TSI: 7.5
4. Southwest Florida International Airport (Fort Myers, Fla.) – TSI: 7.1
5. Newark Liberty International Airport (Newark, N.J.) – TSI: 7.1
6. Dallas Love Field (Dallas) – TSI: 6.8
7. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (Phoenix) – TSI: 6.5
8. Charlotte Douglas International Airport (Charlotte, N.C.) – TSI: 6.4
9. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (Detroit) – TSI: 6.4
10. General Edward Lawrence Logan Int. Airport (Boston) – TSI: 6.4
List of 10 least vulnerable airports in the United States
1. Tampa International Airport (Tampa) – TSI: 5.3
2. Miami International Airport (Miami) – TSI: 5.3
3. Lambert-St Louis International Airport (St. Louis) – TSI: 5.3
4. Kansas City International Airport (Kansas City) – TSI: 5.2
5. Louis Armstrong New Orleans Int. Airport (New Orleans) – TSI: 5.2
6. San Antonio International Airport (San Antonio) – TSI: 5.2
7. Washington Dulles International Airport (Washington) – TSI: 5.1
8. Nashville International Airport (Nashville) – TSI: 5.1
9. Raleigh Durham International Airport (Raleigh Durham) – TSI: 4.9
10. Chicago Midway International Airport (Chicago) – TSI: 4.5
If you are about to travel from any of the vulnerable airports regardless of your location try to buy a local sim card with a 3G or 4G plan to use a secure Internet. Moreover, turn off Sharing, turn on the Firewall, if not in use then turn the WiFi connection off, use a VPN, check for SSL and implement two-step authentication.
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