Keep Your Passwords Safe on Public Use Computers
By: Garnet Bailey
[Nov 21, 2007] As you no doubt realize, passwords are the keys to our resources, our belongings and our online accounts, including our finances. While using our own home or office facilities, most of us work hard at keeping the possibility of having our information monitored or stolen at as low a level as possible. But the threat is still quite real. Part of our protection armor must include the use of protection software such as virus scanners and spyware scanners. It really is a very bad idea to use any internet connected computer today that does NOT have any means of virus or spyware protection. Almost all new computers sold today come equipped with some form of protection pre-installed. And a variety of alternate programs and services are available, many of them at no cost.
But what do you do if you are not at your home or office? This poses a much greater security risk to your password and account safety. Examples and accountings of hijacking of passwords, of tracking surfing activity and of capturing screen information of a user seem to be a common occurrence.
The best method of dealing with these facilities is to simply not use them for any medium or high security uses such as accessing bank accounts or other highly sensitive services you require.
But, of course we don't live in a vacuum and circumstances may dictate that you simply must do so at various times. So when it is essential, there are many steps you should take to ensure your own security. These steps will take a few minutes, but will increase your security by a wide margin and give you peace of mind that your passwords, accounts and information are not being compromised.
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