Is mobile phone tethering secure?

[pete6032]

Is mobile phone tethering as secure as using a VPN like private internet access? Or is it not secure at all?

 

[John Connor]

Uh, no. You will want a VPN if you want encrypted communications. Why would you think it's any different? You think a cell tower is more private? It's no different than a standard ISP.

 

[pete6032]

I go to coffee shops often and use a VPN when connecting to the wifi to prevent against traffic sniffing. Is this a redundant service to have if I can tether my phone and use the 4G connection for internet?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I go to coffee shops often and use a VPN when connecting to the wifi to prevent against traffic sniffing. Is this a redundant service to have if I can tether my phone and use the 4G connection for internet?

Depends. If your primary concern is other people in the coffee shop seeing your stuff? Then yes - using your phone in hotspot mode is fine, because it keep you off that shared Wifi network.

But wifi is free and usually faster than your cell phone, cell phones frequently charge per GB for data, etc., so it probably makes sense to use the public wifi and a VPN in most circumstances.

If you don't want to pay for a third party VPN, a lot of home routers will let you VPN into your home connection and work from "home" that way. It's not secure/encrypted if you're doing anything illicit (it looks like your traffic is coming from your house) but it's sufficient to keep the guy at the other table for man-in-the-middling your Amazon account.

Whether or not you can trust your ISP to keep your data private is another question...

 

[Ken g6]

You think a cell tower is more private? It's no different than a standard ISP.

Tethering is close to being as secure as a landline Internet connection. Which is to say it's very unlikely a person with a radio scanner could intercept your communication. A person with a cell site simulator (e.g. Stingray) probably could. And of course your ISP could. So when traveling to China, for instance, assume everything not sent over a VPN is monitored.

WiFi is much less secure than 4G, because the connection is usually unencrypted, and the network is shared among all the users.

 

[RockinZ28]

I tether almost 24/7. Never had an issue. Always use my hotspot vs. public wifi. 99% of the time it's faster anyway. Heck I tether at work all day, just use the ethernet to connect to the shared file server. Can't have them seeing me browse OT half the day.

 

[John Connor]

Tethering is close to being as secure as a landline Internet connection. Which is to say it's very unlikely a person with a radio scanner could intercept your communication. A person with a cell site simulator (e.g. Stingray) probably could. And of course your ISP could. So when traveling to China, for instance, assume everything not sent over a VPN is monitored.

WiFi is much less secure than 4G, because the connection is usually unencrypted, and the network is shared among all the users.

You can buy a cell repeater (for lack of the right term) run some Python code and grab the data as well.

 

[Skeeedunt]

Posts in this thread are on point. Carry on.

 

[SSSnail]

forums.anandtech.com and pr0nhub don't need to be encrypted.