Why a VPN here?
Three vectors specific to conferences: (1) Evil Twins — pseudo-SSIDs mimicking the official Wi-Fi ("VivaTech-Free" vs "vivatech-official") capturing LinkedIn, Slack and email credentials; (2) session sniffing — an attacker 30m from you can grab your Slack cookie and access your workspace for 24-48h; (3) badge MITM — some official event apps (especially sponsors') have weak certificates and can be hijacked. A VPN neutralizes all three by encrypting the entire network layer.
Full procedure
- 1
Identify the official SSID at registration
Ask the badging desk for the exact official Wi-Fi name and password. Don't trust SSIDs you see in the list — always verify with staff.
- 2
Connect + captive portal
Connect to the official Wi-Fi, complete the captive portal (badge ID, email). Confirm the auth page is in valid HTTPS (the green padlock).
- 3
Enable the VPN immediately
Before opening LinkedIn, Slack, Gmail or any networking app. Kill switch mandatory — a VPN drop exposes your session cookies on the conference.
- 4
Prefer 5G hotspot during keynotes
During keynotes, official Wi-Fi saturates (50,000 concurrent connections). Enable your phone's 5G tethering — often faster and significantly safer.
Official conference apps (Viva Tech app, Web Summit app) request access to calendar, contacts, and Bluetooth. Disable these in OS settings as soon as the event ends — these apps are rarely maintained and become sieves within 6 months.
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Is the official Wi-Fi at big conferences really dangerous?
Yes, statistically. The attacker-to-attendee ratio is higher than at an airport or hotel. Security conferences (DefCon, Black Hat) are notorious — the "Wall of Sheep" displays in real time the credentials sniffed from careless attendees. Business conferences (Viva Tech, CES) are less targeted but the risk exists.
Does my company-provided VPN suffice?
Corporate VPN protects access to internal resources, but often not traffic to Slack, LinkedIn, Twitter which are prime targets at conferences. A personal consumer VPN covers that public traffic. Ideally: combine both.
Do I need a VPN on the conference NFC badge?
The NFC badge only contains your ID — no direct risk. But the event app that reads scanned badges AND uploads your contacts to the organizer's server is a sensitive point. Always review the app's privacy policy before using it. VPN doesn't protect against this vector.