Microsoft Defender is expanding its protection, adding the ability to protect users when they connect to insecure Wi-Fi networks.

Free Wi-Fi networks are offered by businesses of all sizes, but those networks can often pose serious threats to users’ security and privacy. Any number of attacks, including man-in-the-middle attacks, evil twin attacks, and data theft are just a few of the risks insecure networks pose.

Catch our chat on Microsoft Defender’s new Wi-Fi protection feature!

Microsoft Defender, the company’s cybersecurity app, is add features to protect users for those times when they need to access public Wi-Fi networks. The company already added VPN support, since VPNs are one of the go-to solutions to keep data safe on an insecure network.

The company is adding the following features:

• Auto detection and notification of unsecure Wi-Fi connections with the ability to turn on a virtual private network (VPN) in the Defender app for added safety
• Privacy protection (VPN) is now available on all our supported device platforms including Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
• Feature availability in more countries including US, UK, Germany, and Canada. And more countries are coming soon. We’re adding privacy protection to ten additional countries5 in Europe, Asia, and LATAM regions soon.

The suspicious Wi-Fi detection, in particular, will go a long way toward keeping users safe.

We’ve added detection for un-safe Wi-Fi (suspicious Wi-Fi). These detections are possible using Defender heuristics that examine multiple characteristics of a Wi-Fi hotspot to determine if it is suspicious. As with unsecure Wi-Fi, you get a notification for un-safe Wi- Fi as well and can turn on Defender VPN for added safety.

Microsoft has committed to revamping its security after a string of embarrassing breaches. It’s good to see the company displaying an equal level of concern for keeping users safe and secure.