Tip of the week: How to foil wireless hackers

Stay current. Keep your laptop’s operating system and Web browsers up to date along with “fire-wall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software.”

Use Wi-Fi sparingly. If your laptop accidentally connects to a network run by hackers, they can tap into your most sensitive data. So when you don’t need to be online, “turn off your laptop’s Wi-Fi capabilities.”

Bank at home. Some information is just too important to be transmitted in public at all. Don’t conduct purchases or financial transactions through any wireless network but the one you set up yourself.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal