Public unsecured Wi-Fi is a huge target for malicious actors looking to steal the identities of others in order to commit fraud. The next time you stop at a public Wi-Fi hotspot you could also be sitting near someone committed to trying to compromise your information.
Also consider that data that is transmitted over Wi-Fi hotspots is not secure and generally not encrypted. This is much easier to capture, therefore, it’s safer to keep personal information and transactions away from publicly accessible unsecured networks. It is possible for someone to perform what is called a man-in-the-middle attack, in which they are able to redirect given traffic to a malicious site to further compromise your information or your machine.
Another danger of using public Wi-Fi aside from the risk of your information, malicious attacker can hijack the connection point of thew Wi-Fi and prompt pop ups to occur which when clicked can download malware. These cases are more rare than just the collection of information of the viewing of the traffic from a given machine, but it is still possible.
For these reasons it is smart to stay off of public Wi-Fi unless absolutely necessary. In cases where it is necessary use a VPN (Virtual Private network) connection, keep your machine up-to-date , and avoid conducting sensitive business over public Wi-Fi networks.