Four safety tips for using public computers

My niece used an Internet café in Peru to send a few instant messages. About half an hour after she logged out, I got an IM with salacious remarks and knew she’d just had her account hijacked.

To help keep you safe from this form of identity theft, I‘ve put together this list of simple safety precautions you can use whenever you access the Web from an Internet café, the library, a friend’s home, or any computer that’s not your own.

1. Find out if the computer is protected

Find out if the computer is protected from viruses, spyware and the like. Is there a firewall in place? If the computer is not well protected, it’s likely to be infected with malicious programs, some of which could grab your information including passwords or personally identifiable information. The safe choice is to assume the computer is infected and be very cautious with the information you reveal.

2. Erase your tracks

Here are some tips to foil thieves who may sit down after you and try to follow your trail.

Make sure your account doesn’t automatically save your password and user ID

Before you log in to any site—for example, your e-mail or instant messaging (IM account)—check to see if the program automatically saves your user name and password. Yahoo!, for example, keeps you signed in for two weeks by default.
If the account does save this information, change the setting. For example, If you were signing in to Yahoo (link here), you would click to clear the check from the Keep me signed in box before you clicked Sign In. That way, the next person won’t be able to sign in as you.

Turn off the feature that remembers your password

In Internet Explorer:
1. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
2. Click the Content tab, and then click AutoComplete.
3. Click to clear both check boxes having to do with passwords.

Erase any history of your presence on a public computer

Web browsers automatically track the sites you’ve visited and possibly the passwords used as well.
In Internet Explorer, delete temporary Internet files and the history of your activity at that computer:
1. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.
2. Under Temporary Internet files, click Delete Files, and Delete Cookies. This deletes temporary Internet files.
3. Under History, click Clear History.This deletes the history of your activity.

3. Guard against snoops

Never walk away from the computer without logging off every program

Even if you will only be gone for a moment, it only takes that long for someone to grab your information, so log off every program that required your login, password, or contained sensitive information. Simply closing the browser will not remove your information; neither will typing in a different Web address.

Make sure no one is watching what you type

People looking for passwords, user names, or other sensitive information can watch your fingers or the screen as you type. So look around before logging on to be sure no one is watching your actions. This includes not only the people on computers right next to you, but people hovering in the background.

4. Some information is NEVER safe to enter on a public computer

To protect yourself, never pay bills, make purchases, check bank accounts, enter social security numbers, your address, or any other personally identifiable information into a public computer. This precaution is your best insurance against identify theft in case the computer is compromised by keystroke loggers or other malicious software. (The owner may not even know they are there.)
Safe surfing,
Linda