Re: is hotel wi-fi safe?

[Scott Klement <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jim,
> Recent trip - several hotels only offered wi-fi with wep(encryption) turned off.
> So how safe are things like cisco vpn to company system, or to 
> connect in a ssl browser window to eBay or any other eCommerce site?
>   
SSL and other VPN encryptions are many, many times more secure than 
WEP.   In fact, WEP is considered one of the least secure of the 
encryption technologies available.

Is all of your traffic routed through the VPN?   Or is the VPN only for 
company business?  If it's the latter, you'll want to be careful about 
things like web browsing...     Of course, anything that's SSL encrypted 
is protected, but anything that's not is visible to everyone...

A firewall does not provide protection against people viewing the data 
you send over Wi-Fi.