Safely Using a Public Computers

When the inevitable time comes to use a public computer, which seems to happen to us all. There are somethings we need to pay attention to ensure that we have the safest and private computer use. Although there is one thing to remember in reality there really is no way to be a 100% sure that the computer you are using is secure. It is better to assuming that the public computer is compromised and what ever you do may be available to someone else including your passwords.

Inherit Risk

1. Malicious software

2. Check surroundings, most common way to steal information is shoulder surfing, which is someone watching over your shoulder.

3. Watch your stuff, don’t leave the computer or your stuff alone even for a min as something could be loaded onto the computer or someone could swipe your stuff.

Warning: When using USB thumb drives or portable hard drives can be dangerous especially drives with U3 technology built in. If you were to stick a usb drive into a compromised computer it can copy the data off your usb drive and then install a malicious software which can be used to install itself onto your home computer. To solve this problem is to disable autorun from your computer. This can be done by downloading TweakUI from Microsoft and disable autorun for the drives. You can also temporary disable autorun by holding shift when you plug it into your computer. Make sure you scan the usb drive to make sure that nothing was install on it.

To protect your data on your usb drive from being access you can download a program called truecrypt which can create a encrypted file which can contain all your sensitive data, so if your usb drive is copied the thief is unable to access it without the password. Due remember that if you mount the truecrypt file onto a public computer it than can be copied.

Few tips to increasing the Security

1. Use Portable applications

   If your use to carrying around an usb thumb drive or even an ipod, having portable applications on the device makes cleaning up after using a public computer much easier not to mention you can carry all your personal settings with you. A great site for a suit of portable applications is PortableApps.com.

2. If possible choose a place where the public computer is reinstalled for each user

   A good Cafe, or library that is concern for computer security and privacy will use programs such as SteadyState by Microsoft which is free to roll back the operating system each time the computer reboots.

3. Run a web-based malicious scanner

   Running an free web-based malicious scanner is easy way to check for virus. You may not be able to remove them but you will at least know if the computer may be compromised. However, just because nothing was detected it doesn’t mean the computer is clean, as malicious scanners are at best 24hrs behind on new malicious software, also hardware key loggers are impossible to detect through software.

   Here are few free Online scanners:

   1. HouseCall

   2. BitDefender

   3. kaspersky

4. Boot from an another device

   Use an live CD or boot from a USB drive, if possible. This just plan out avoids all software issues, however you still need to be aware that there may be a hardware key logger on the keyboard which could still monitor your keystrokes. Other than that there is no cleanup of your information required.

5. If checking your web-mail such as yahoo, gmail, hotmail make sure to use a secure ssl connection which is https:// and a lock at the bottom of the browser.

   This basically encrypts the data being transmitted to the computer including your password. However remember to change your password when you get to a secure computer as it doesn’t protect you against keyloggers.

6. Don’t save passwords, Avoid if possible

   If you must use passwords make sure to click not to save, also when you get to your home or a secure computer change your passwords that you used on a public computer.

7. Don’t do Online Banking

   Just don’t do Online banking there really is no way 100% secure a public computer.

8. Don’t enter credit card info

   Again no way to completely secure the public computer.

Clean UP

1. Delete Browsing History

   If your not using a portable applications such as portable Firefox, than deleting your Internet history should be one of your first steps. To do this on Internet Explorer go to tools | Delete Browsing history | Delete All

2. Don’t save locally

   This is more of a nice thing to do rather than security thing. Just don’t fill the public computer with junk.

3. Delete temporary files ( *.tmp, *.chk, ~*.* )

   When using other programs other than a Web browser it may save temporary infromation on the public computer incase of failure, memory reasons, and etc. To delete these search for *.tmp, ~*.*, *.chk and delete all files found.

4. clear the pagefile

   Most public computers will not allow the clearing of pagefile however you may be able to delete it by deleting c:\pagefile.sys it is usually hidden so you will need to click view | Folder options and the view tab than scroll down to than deselect hide protected operating system files.

5. Reboot

   Basically clears the ram which may contain sensitive data.