Which Is More Secure, Wi-Fi or Wired?

I’ve actually been meaning to blog about this topic a while back, but as you may have noticed, I’m not posting as frequently as I used to because of the way I’m prioritizing my tasks this year for the better of me. Sorry to say, but school comes first, work second, then blogging last.

With that aside, I thought this would be a great topic to write about when a student phoned for some IT Support. She then brought forth the following question as the call was ending: “Which is more secure? The university’s wireless internet, or the wired internet on the lab computers?”

Although she expected the wireless connection to be more secure because she was behind the safety of her own computer, the truth is using a shared lab computer with a wired connection would generally be more secure at transmitting sensitive data. Also let me put forth this other piece of info: The wireless connection at my University is unencrypted.

Those who may not be so network savvy may initially get the notion that using your own computer is safer. However, there is software out there termed “packet sniffers” which can pick out sensitive data over a network (Note: University lab computers log on a different domain so they are not affected by a packet sniffer initialized by someone on their laptop). It would be even much easier to pick out due to the wireless signal being unencrypted. Also, if you thought that using your own computer would be safer, you probably got the idea that using a shared computer would be risky because it’s shared. With proper usage of public computers, they would be the better alternative if you had to send sensitive info over the internet at the university. Now when I mention proper usage, all I meant was to simply clear out the cache and history of whatever browser you used on that public computer — especially if you sent some sensitive information like a credit card number.

Although using a wired lab computer is safer, home is always a better option…unless your home computer is chronically plagued with viruses, then I would suggest you don’t transmit any sensitive information online.