How to keep Yourself Safe on Public Computers in 3 Easy Steps?

Despite all the Blackberries, Smart phones, laptops and other portable net access devices we end up visiting a cyber café in the time of need. Public computers are the most fertile ground for identity thieves. They use various mechanisms to stalk their prey in cyber cafes. Most of the people have been victimized, and their personal details as well as financial information have been stolen from public computers.

In this article I am going to show you a way to keep your personal detail and financial information secured even when you are using a public computer. Just follow the steps given below, and you will not regret using a public computer.

Step 1: Scan the running programs

Press Control, Alt, and Delete (Ctrl + Alt + Delete) or Control, Shift, and Escape (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) to open “Windows Task Manager”, and find any suspicious program running in the background. It may be a key logger that records every key that you press on the windows based PC. This is the first thing you should do while using a public computer. If you cannot make head and tail of the running processes then call the cyber café manager or a technical guy and ask him to sort out your issue. Remove all unwanted running processes by clicking “End Process” that is at the bottom right corner of “Windows Task Manager”.

Step 2: Use virtual keyboard

I do not recommend using a physical keyboard in a cyber café because of key logging software. You may have scanned “Windows Task Manager” for suspicious applications, but you can never be sure that the system doesn’t have a key logger installed, as many key logger applications do not show up in “Windows Task Manager”.

Carrying a pen drive or any other kind of external storage media is norm these days, and I am sure you also carry one almost always with you. All you need to do is find an open source portable virtual keyboard and carry with you in a USB pen drive. Use this keyboard instead of a physical keyboard in a cyber café. This will provide required safety to your personal data on a public computer.

Step 3: Delete all the privacy data

Once you are done with surfing Internet on a public computer you should delete the entire web history, cache file, as well as any other saved information from browser’s memory. Delete all cookies, search histories, and address bar cache as well.

If you are using Internet Explorer, then go to tools followed by “Internet Options”, and find and delete all required information. If you are using Firefox, go to tools and click “Clear Recent History” and choose everything from the dialogue box. And in case you are using Google Chrome click on the settings icon, which is beside new page icon next to the address bar, and click on “Clear Browsing Data”. Select all the check boxes and click the “Clear Browsing Data” button. You have just saved yourself the horror of identity theft.