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If I use my personal computer on my company's guest wifi, can they see what I'm browsing?

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  • It depends how they have it set up. Can you provide more information?
    – TheJulyPlot
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 15:48
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    The simple rule is: if it's someone else's (network, computer, whatever), assume they can see whatever happens on it.
    – baldPrussian
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 15:52
  • It indeed depends on how the network is setup and configured but always consider that they are able to do that. The biggest question is if they are analyzing the logs.
    – TimVK
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 15:53

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The company could log what sites you go to and record the traffic, if the connections are not encrypted then they could recover the entire session and know what you did. If you are using https, i.e. TLS to connect then they will only be able to see what sites you went to, not what you actually did, this means you'd want to be careful of what sites you go to.

If you want to make sure they cannot see what you are doing then using something like TOR would be a good choice, however I would recommend you don't violate your employee code of conduct or company's acceptable use policy when on their site, even when using your own computer.

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  • How would they see what sites you visited? From my understanding of the topic, HTTPS encrypts everything including the HTTP headers that will include the destination site. Therefore, the actual URL accessed is not visible. Unless I am missing something?
    – dFrancisco
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 18:03
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Assuming an IT guy did not take your computer and "install some stuff on it" (i.e. new root certificate(s)) and you did not install any special employee company software onto it, your company will only be able to sniff/see what you are doing on HTTP sites.

HTTP sites are ones that do not employ TLS (or SSL) encryption and an administrator on the router or person sniffing WiFi traffic can read the clear-text packets of what you are doing. As long as everything you do is on HTTPS sites (green lock and "Secure" appears in browser bar), they will most likely not be able to see what you are doing.

I would still not recommend doing anything really sketchy or illegal on it, but you should be safe from them seeing you went on Twitter at work, etc.

If you are really concerned, look into using a VPN (free and paid ones exist). A VPN would offer double encryption on HTTPS sites and offer a level of encryption similar to HTTPS on HTTP sites.

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