Most of us visit Internet cafes often as it is often faster than our home internet connection so we often go for downloading HD videos , Songs etc, also many people go to internet cafe for official purposes. There they transfer money from their bank accounts, Check mails and do different activities. Here the question arises that is Internet cafes safe? Well sadly the answer is no. Most of the cafes are infected.
You sit down, struggle with the broken keyboard in an internet cafe to email a few friends, pay and leave. And after few days when you try to sign in you see that someone changed your password !
This is the risk to the people who use public computers and don’t understand internet cafe security.
Keylogging in Internet Cafes
Most of the the the cafe staff or the users install keyloggers on the computer which secretly records every keystrokes that you made, even the passwords. So after you leave the computer they easily get your password and then they do malicious activities.
The best way to prevent yourself from keyloggers in internet cafes is to use the virtual keyboard.
Start button → all programs → Accessories → Ease of access → On-Screen Keyboard
Read – Top 3 tools to generate pronounceable / random passwords
Internet Browsers on USB Drives
Another way to secure yourself is to put a portable internet browser onto a USB memory stick so that you can simply plug the USB drive in the computer of the cafe and start the browser by clicking on the executable file. All your saved credentials, cookies, and even bookmarks are kept handy in one portable place.
Download either Firefox Portable or Google Chrome Portable and save them to your memory stick.
Private Browsing
Private browsing an option that is provided in most of the popular browser. Web browsers store information such as browsing history, images, videos and text within cache. In contrast, Private mode can be enabled so that the browser does not store this information for selected browsing sessions. This allows a person to browse the Web without storing local data that could be retrieved at a later date.
- If using Firefox, use “Private Browsing” mode where no personal information is saved. Try pressing ctrl-shift-p or choose “start private browsing” under the “tools” menu.
- If using Google chrome, Use ”Incognito” mode where no personal information is saved.
Try pressing ctrl-shift-N
Clearing Your Personal Data
Before leaving the computer just clear all your personal data like browsing history, cache, cookies, usernames etc.
- In Firefox: In many Firefox browsers, you can clear data quickly by pressing ctrl-shift-del. Otherwise, choose “tools” and “clear recent history.”
- In Google chrome press Ctrl+H → Clear Browsing data
By following the above mentioned securiy measures one can protect themself in internet cafes but we recommend you not to use public computer for online banking !
