Issues with public WI-FI hotspots, to include common attack vectors, and how to protect yourself.

While free public Wi-Fi is available in many places, and a lot of people jump on an open internet connection for a convenient way to access online accounts and check emails, you shouldn't. According to Norton LifeLock's 2018 Cyber Safety Insight Report, over 1 billion users have been victims of cybercrime. The issue with "free" Wi-Fi is never free. If a user is using the open internet to access their bank account, they can be victims of a man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, where an attacker is creating a connection from your device to theirs and from theirs to the bank. The issue here is that now the malicious attacker has access to your bank account, user id, and password, which can be used to steal your information and money. Other common attacks and issues with public Wi-Fi are there the user can also be a victim of Rouge Wi-Fi Networks, where you think the public internet you are accessing is from a legitimize company it can hackers setting up free internet to access your information, insert WORM (a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers). There are many other common attacks such as Packet Analyzers, which can sniff packets from your device to the internet and use the information for malicious reasons, Rogue APs. Evil Twins is where wireless (Access point)AP looks legit but is malicious, Ad-Hocs, and so on. The best way to protect yourself is by not accessing Wi-Fi or AP you don't know or trust, using a VPN while using public Wi-Fi if needed, limit file sharing.

Reference 

https://now.symassets.com/content/dam/norton/campaign/NortonReport/2019/2018_Norton_LifeLock_Cyber_Safety_Insights_Report_US_Media_Deck.pdf?promocode=DEFAULTWEB%20

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-wifi-the-dos-and-donts-of-using-public-wi-fi.html