You may have seen snippets floating around on the Internet that claim Aircell's Gogo in-flight connectivity solution does not comply with necessary security measures to ensure passenger privacy. Snippets like this little post. But according to Aircell, it's all bollox, or as my mam would say: "It's all me eye."
Aircell says it has been seeing an uptick in small security vendors who are riding the firm's coat tails to secure their own media coverage or sales of their products (if you notice at the end of the post, the blogger recommends their own VPN solution). It notes that in the original Newsblaze "report" the blogger references is a PR pitch from yet another small security vendor hawking its services.
"Basically, these companies are announcing that public Wi-Fi hotspots (e.g., Gogo, Starbucks, hotels, etc.) aren't encrypted - not exactly news," says Aircell.
"To date, we have not identified any network security vulnerabilities in the Gogo In-flight Internet service that are threats to our customers. Credit card transactions to access Gogo are encrypted and fully secure. Other Internet traffic on the Gogo network is as secure as any public Wi-Fi hotspot in a hotel, airport or coffee house. For users who wish a higher level of information security, Gogo supports virtually all VPN clients."
The company, which has been cooking with gas of late, adds: "As you know, Aircell is committed to our customers' safety and security both in the air and online and will do all we can to ensure our customers' information remains secure and private."
So essentially, fair reader, while we all worry about hackers, if you're a Gogo user you need not worry any more than you normally do.
(Photo at http://www.freefoto.com/preview/04-04-54?ffid=04-04-54&k=Computer+Keyboard )
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