The main holiday period will soon be on us and many people will want to keep in contact with their emails, bank accounts and stockmarket accounts etc. Of course if you have a laptop then you can always connect through a telephone line or perhaps via WiFi if you're staying in a Hotel that offers it.
If you're in a city or a main tourist area there will also be the opportunity to head to a local Starbucks or similar Coffee shop where for a fee you can logon to the net using their wireless connection. But many don't like to travel with a laptop and only need internet access perhaps a few times a week. The best bet is therefore to use an internet café.
- However, these cafes especially in the more dodgy areas of the world are notorious for installing key logging software on their machines, this means that someone is making a recording of everything you type in alongside every website you visit
- Obviously if you're just checking your personal email or generally surfing the web this is no problem but it does pose some serious problems when conducting more sensitive business
This guide is going to look at how you can protect yourself and your information.
Bank Accounts
Personally we feel that even if key logging software is used there's actually little risk in anyone finding out your bank details. This is because it's normally a 3 or 4 step login procedure which is almost impossible for anyone to crack. Our main bank is Natwest and this is what we have to do in order to access our account -
- Login to the main Natwest website and enter our customer number (the key loggers could record this info)
- We are then taken to another screen and have to enter 3 digits of a 4 digit PIN, but these are always jumbled up so it might ask to enter digit 3, 4 and 1 and then next time digits 4, 1 and 2 - So yes, the key logging software would record what's entered but they would only know 3 of the 4 digits and anyway they wouldn't know the correct order
- We then have an 8 letter password of which only 3 letters are asked for, again jumbled up. Perhaps the 8th, 6th and 3rd then the next login the 1st, 7th and 4th - So key loggers again would again be pretty useless here
Summary: In our view logging into and carrying out online banking business is safe when doing it through an internet cafe.
Credit Cards
We've got about 6 Credit Cards and they all use the same login procedure, just a simple type in username and password. This is obviously nowhere near as secure as the internet banking sites but then you can't actually do much on an online credit card site. No money can be siphoned off, no money can be paid to anyone else etc.
However, why tempt fate when the key loggers might be watching. So we'll need to employ defensive measures which are discussed in the solution further down this page.
Online Stockmarket trading Accounts
Stockbroking sites are generally very weak on the security front with just a username and password which can be easily logged. Now, if someone gets access to your account they won't be able to steal any money because as we all know money can only be paid to the name of the actual account holder. But some serious damage can still be done by using your account to mess around, perhaps buying stock, selling current positions etc and whatever the case you just know those decisions will cost you money.
Solution to this problem - keep reading.
Email & Other Login Sites
For many, email is not that important if someone gets access to it, and it's the same with other sites you visit, perhaps some internet message boards or Amazon.co.uk etc. But again, why tempt fate so let's now talk about the solution to all these problems.
How To Fully Protect Yourself When Using An Internet Café Or Even Someone Else's Computer
It's very simple and employs a 2 step strategy -
- Buy a USB flash drive as in the picture below. These are about the site of a small cigarette lighter and come in memory sizes of 256mb, 512mb, 1gigabyte and upwards etc. Note that a Word document will normally be around 0.05 of a megabyte therefore for 90% of people a USB flash drive of 512mb is going to be plenty of space. A USB drive is basically a tiny hard drive that all sorts of data can be copied to, email accounts, websites, all your Word documents, in fact any piece of data that's on your PC. To copy data from your PC just plug it in to the USB port, go to Windows Explorer and copy it across. To use that data on someone else's PC plug the drive in and access it as if it was another hard drive
- Then when in an Internet Cafe simply plug the USB drive into the computer and run your email and internet browser from the Drive using the software discussed below -
A USB Flash Drive
The clever part of this operation is that there is now a portable version of the excellent Mozilla Firefox internet browser, a similar piece of kit to Microsoft's Internet Explorer which you're most probably using to read this page. The software is specifically designed to run from portable USB drives.
- All you do is download the software - available here, install it onto your USB drive and then when in an internet café (or on someone else's computer) run the programs from the portable hard drive
- If you use sensitive usernames/passwords then also download one of these (both are 100% free) Password Managers - Password Safe & KeePass and you can then copy/paste any unsernames/passwords into websites so bypassing any KeyLogging software
- Doing it like this also ensures that no personal information is left behind on the machine you use
- The portable Mozilla browser also stores all your favourites, passwords for internet sites, email logins etc
Summary
Ok we admit this is a bit of a mouthful but we live in world where fraudsters and scammers are around every corner, and that's just in the UK! But if you put into operation a strategy like this you'll soon see that it doesn't take much time or effort to operate. And even then, if you really need access to sensitive data, websites, accounts when on holiday what else can you do?
Overall this is the best strategy to use and very cheap to setup as well, the USB drive will cost between £10-£15 and the other software is all free. And if you want you can also download a portable version of Thunderbird which is Mozilla's version (far better incidentally) of Microsoft's email program - available here.
As ever though the secret to all of this is to make sure you get things working well at home before you go on holiday. Check out every site you want to visit, try downloading your emails, try accessing your stockbroker's site etc. Doing it this way will save lots of time and effort when on holiday.
Useful Links
