Public Wi-Fi safety on iPhone
Public Wi-Fi in cafés, hotels, and airports is handy, but you're sharing it with everyone else on it, and it's often unsecured. You don't have to avoid it, just use it with a little care.
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Check the network name
Before joining, confirm the exact name with a member of staff. Scammers set up hotspots with names like Free Airport WiFi hoping you'll connect to theirs, so a lookalike name is a warning sign.
Save the sensitive stuff for later
Most apps and sites are encrypted, but treat public Wi-Fi as fine for browsing and best avoided for banking or logging in to important accounts. If you need those on the move, use your mobile data instead, which is much harder for others to intercept, or turn on a VPN.
Turn off auto-join for one-off networks
After using a public network, go to Settings, then Wi-Fi, tap the network, and turn off Auto-Join, or tap Forget This Network. That stops your iPhone silently reconnecting to it, or to a lookalike, later on.
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