TMobile USB stick

lindabea

I bought a USB stick to use when I visit my mother as she doesn't have broadband at her house. It works very well but when I looked at the connection properties, it doesn't look like it's a wifi connection as I don't see an encryption type like wep or wpa. Can someone pls tell me if using the stick makes a secure connection? Is it a VPN?

TonyMMM

It isn't wi-fi. A usb dongle works in the same way as a mobile phone connection ...wpa/wep don't apply.

lindabea

TonyMMM wrote: »

It isn't wi-fi. A usb dongle works in the same way as a mobile phone connection ...wpa/wep don't apply.

Is this generally regarded as a secure connection for laptops? Mobile phones don't have the kind of information that laptops tend to have.

NiftyDigits

lindabea wrote: »

Is this generally regarded as a secure connection for laptops? Mobile phones don't have the kind of information that laptops tend to have.

Yes, it is secure.

paddyrg

It's probably even more secure than wifi TBH - it's a direct connection to the ISP, and any banking etc will still be over HTTPS/SSL

TimothyEBaldwin

It is not secure, and neither is ADSL or a typical Internet backbone link. An attacker needs only a basic disguise whilst they connect their equipment to a wired connection.

You should use end-to-end encryption to protect sensitive information transfer over the Internet.

The encryption used in GSM is rather weak and can be disabled by a rouge base station. 3G is more secure. but the stick will by default fall back to GSM if 3G is not available. Reference: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/26C3-GSM-hacking-made-easy-893245.html

It is however difficult enough to deter bandwidth thieves.

securityguy

TimothyEBaldwin wrote: »

You should use end-to-end encryption to protect sensitive information transfer over the Internet.

End to end encryption that is provided by https, used by default for most "sensitive information". Hence not a problem that is any more of an issue for a user of a USB dongle than any other form of Internet connection.

The encryption used in GSM is rather weak and can be disabled by a rouge base station. 3G is more secure. but the stick will by default fall back to GSM if 3G is not available. Reference: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/26C3-GSM-hacking-made-easy-893245.html

Yeah, that's _absolutely_ a risk that a random person going to use a 3G dongle at her mother's house needs to worry about. Leaving aside the plausibility of the attack itself (and the fact that it works independent of the colour that the femtocell is painted, vert or jaune are as good as rouge), even if indeed tricky base-station spoofing attacks are being conducted, they're no more a risk than using the WiFi in a coffee shop.