5M Public, Unsecured Wi-Fi Networks Found Exposed
Praveen kumar Mathivanan via Unsplash
Research from Zimperium that mobile threats are growing and evolving, with malicious actors engaging in mobile-first attack strategies to access corporate data via mobile malware, social engineering, rogue networks, and app vulnerabilities. As travel season becomes increasingly busy, these risks become greater.
Phishing is a prominent mobile threat and accounts for approximate one-third of activity. A large portion of this activity comes from PDF-based attacks and SMS-based phishing (mishing), which can mimic travel-related notifications.
Application security is another risk, as sideloaded apps (or apps downloaded from somewhere other than an official app store) are present on nearly a quarter of enterprise devices. This raises the risk of hidden malware. Furthermore, most Android apps (60%) in enterprise environments depend on basic security tools while 60% of iOS apps do not have basic code protection. One-fourth of devices cannot update to the latest OS, leaving them vulnerable to long term exposure.
The research also found that more than 5 million public, unsecured global Wi-Fi networks have been exposed since the beginning of 2025, and 33% of users connect to public, unsecured networks.
For traveling employees, the report notes four major threats:
- Man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks through public Wi-Fi
- Phishing attempts that mimic travel alerts
- Sideloaded applications
- Captive portals that collect personal information
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