Exercise Caution When Using Public Internet Terminals

More and more public Internet terminals seem to keep popping up. There are web-surfing coffee shops and computers available for use at libraries. There are also public computers available for users to rent time on at Kinko's locations. Recently Juju Jiang pled guilty to having installed stealth keystroke logging software on computers at up to 14 different Kinko's locations. By retrieving the data captured by the keystroke logging software he was able to capture usernames, passwords and other confidential information from anyone else who used those computers. Surfing the web for news and weather or doing simple research on a public computer is probably fine, but you should exercise caution when it comes to entering any usernames, passwords or making any purchases that would require any confidential information such as your credit card number or social security number. For more information about the risks of using public computers you can see this sunspot.net article: New York hacker case highlights risks of using public computers. To discuss this article or your thoughts and opinions of security on public Internet terminals visit the Forums here: Public Internet Terminal Security.