Respond to the man-in-the-middle attack alert

Public Wi-Fi connections are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. MITM attack is a setup where an attacker places himself between you and the Wi-Fi provider. You might think that you are connecting to your trusted Wi-Fi provider but you would be connecting to a malicious tool which is recording all your keystrokes and passwords.

MITM attackers use social engineering to make a website or a Wi-Fi connection look like a known legitimate source to harvest your data.

When you get an alert from Norton, select the appropriate option and click OK.

• Enable Auto VPN: If Norton detects your device connected to a compromised Wi-Fi network, it alerts you to turn on Auto VPN.

  With Auto VPN turned on, your Norton product automatically turns on VPN when your device connects to a public Wi-Fi network.

• Enable Secure VPN: If Norton detects the Secure VPN feature is disabled, it alerts you to turn on Secure VPN.

• Trust this network: If you think Norton identifies a known Wi-Fi network as an MITM attack, click Trust this network. This will add the network to trusted networks list. Norton will not notify you the next time you access the Wi-Fi hotspot.

• Disconnect: If you are uncertain, click Disconnect.

When in doubt, make sure that your connection fulfills all the following conditions.

• Make sure that the website you access starts with "https" not "http".

• Do not access any public Wi-Fi connections without a password.

• Do not click on any website link received from an email, always use your browser's address bar to access websites.

• Never use a public Wi-Fi connection without a Virtual Private Network (VPN) like Norton Secure VPN.

• Since MITM attacks primarily use malware for execution, make sure that your subscription is up to date.