The summer season is officially here. For many business owners and employees across the UK, that means trading the office or spare bedroom for a deckchair, a holiday let, or a seaside café. Thanks to modern cloud technology, working from anywhere has never been easier.

But as we pack our laptops alongside our sunglasses, cybercriminals are getting ready for their favourite time of the year.

Open public Wi-Fi networks—whether they are at Southend Airport, a hotel in Spain, or your local coffee shop—remain one of the easiest ways for criminals to intercept business data.

We want you to enjoy your summer working, but we also want you to do it safely. Here is our jargon-free guide to secure summer working in 2026.

Most people assume that if a Wi-Fi network requires a password from the hotel reception, it must be safe. Unfortunately, that is no longer true.

One of the most common cyber threats we see during the summer months is an “Evil Twin” attack. A hacker sits in a hotel lobby or airport lounge with a small, inexpensive device that broadcasts a wireless signal. They name their network something entirely believable, like “Hotel_Guest_WiFi_Free” or “Airport_Lounge_HighSpeed”.

When your employee connects to it, everything looks normal. They can access the internet and check their emails. However, because the hacker controls the router, they can see exactly what data is leaving that laptop. They can log passwords, steal active session tokens, and compromise your sensitive corporate data without ever leaving their seat.

The simplest way to protect your business this summer is to implement a strict company-wide rule: never connect corporate devices to public Wi-Fi networks.

Fortunately, in 2026, you don’t need to. With 4G and 5G coverage now faster and more reliable than ever across the UK and Europe, using a mobile hotspot (tethering) is actually a much better experience.

Why it’s safer: Mobile data networks encrypt your traffic from your device directly to the provider, making it virtually impossible for a nearby hacker to intercept.

 The rule: If your staff are working on the move, they should use a company-provided mobile hotspot or tether to their work mobile phone. It is faster, safer, and completely bypasses the risks of public infrastructure.

Relying on your employees to remember security rules while they are trying to relax on holiday is a high-risk strategy. That is why your IT systems should enforce these rules for them.

Using advanced cloud management tools in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, WebbyTech can configure Conditional Access policies that act as an automated digital guard for your company data. For example, you can create a policy that says: “If a device tries to connect to SharePoint via an unencrypted public network, block the login attempt instantly and require them to use a secure connection.”

You can also set up geographic boundaries. If your team only operates in the UK, we can block all access from overseas. If an executive is travelling abroad for a working holiday, we can securely whitelist their specific destination for the exact duration of their trip, locking it down the moment they return.

WebbyTech is here to help.Let’s have a quick, plain-speaking chat about ensuring your team’s laptops are fully secured before they hit the road.

You can see the full range of services we offer here or contact us directly for a no obligations conversation.