Public PC and Protecting Your Identity

Public PCs are a hot bed for identity thieves and password stealing Trojan horses so beware when using such computers.

Owners of these public computers do not closely monitor the equipment so infections happen quite easily.





Therefore, public computers are more vulnerable to data thieves and their unscrupulous ways.

It is all very innocent when using public access computers in cyber cafes or libraries. Take precautions when doing any web surfing on these machines because, you will be surprised on how much browsing information you leave on computers after you log off.

Hundreds of people will log on to these computers to check email, use banking services or pay credit card bills and will leave valuable information behind after they are gone. Data thieves know this and will harvest information from these computers and sell this information to spammers and other unsavory cyber criminals.

The best defense is not to even use public access computers. If you must, make sure you delete all your browsing history before logging off.

This will make sure you do not leave any trace of information of your internet identity for cyber thieves to steal.

Another way to use a public computer without worrying about cyber information harvesters is to use a bootable operating system like Knoppix. Carrying a copy of Knoppix on a CD or jump drive, you are on your way to safe web browsing on any computer for public use in libraries, cyber cafes, or schools.

If you cannot reboot the computer and have to use the machine’s operating system, run your own applications from your CD or jump drive. PortableApps.com has an excellent suite of tools at your disposal for surfing the web from your portable drive.

The portable apps project is a compilation of free and open source computer programs. These portable applications store all temporary files, cache files, and history on your CD or jump drive. You can feel secure that you will be leaving no history or information from your web browsing on the public pc.

Another good protection procedure to follow is to scan the public computer with the portable app ClamWin antivirus software. This will help protect you from malicious software lurking on a public pc.

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