Software updates can be hijacked - if you use public WiFi

Researchers from Radware - a fellow security company - were busy at the Defcon security event in Las Vegas this weekend, showing an application that stages a classic man-in-the-middle attack on computers when looking for updates across a public WiFi network.

The Ippon (meaning “game over” in Judo) application reportedly looks for update requests for around 100 popular applications and then responds with a malware-loaded “update”.

Clever stuff, except that if you do anything such as accessing electronic banking, buying stuff and updating your laptop on a public access WiFi network - which rarely have any form of security - you really  are kicked where it hurts. This is what you might get electronically if you update your notebook on a public access WiFi network.

Turning off automatic updates on a notebook actually makes financial, as well as security, sense. Why, you ask? Because you'll download a lot less data on a WiFi network - which probably charges you by the Mb or minute for the privilege.

Our advice: do your updates and e-shopping at home or in the office - it's a whole lot safer and quite likely also cheaper!