{"id":5547,"date":"2014-07-28T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/?p=5547"},"modified":"2020-02-26T10:54:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T15:54:03","slug":"public-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/public-computers\/5547\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware: public computers in hotels"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s tempting to want to check your email or your bank and credit card accounts while you\u2019re traveling this summer, but the only thing less safe than using public Wi-Fi\u00a0<\/a>on your vacation is using the public computers at your hotel.<\/p>\n

A group of attackers was arrested earlier this month after allegedly installing keylogging programs on hotel computers in the business centers of hotels in Texas<\/a>, prompting the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s National Cybersecurity and Integrations Center to warn hoteliers across the country to up their security measures. By installing keylogging programs that recorded users\u2019 keystrokes and emailing the data to external emails, these attackers were able to gain the login credentials for users\u2019 email and financial accounts.<\/p>

Itching to check your email on vacation? Don\u2019t risk the hotel computer.<\/p>Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n

These types of scams are easily executed, and vacationers would be wise to treat the computers in their hotels with extreme caution. Want to go online to check the score of a baseball game? Go for it. Want to check your email? Use your phone or wait until you get to grandma\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

Keylogging scams are easily executed, and vacationers would be wise to treat the computers in their hotels with extreme caution.<\/div>\n

But if it is absolutely necessary that you check your email and the only way to do it is on a public computer, don\u2019t just hope that computer hasn\u2019t been compromised \u2013 take precautions. Forward your mail \u2013 or have specific emails that you\u2019re expecting forwarded \u2013 to a disposable email account like Mailinator<\/span>\u00a0or Trashmail that has a short life and a timed expiration. If you absolutely need to download a file, make the item shareable by link and have that link sent to this disposable address. The key here is that you are never using your personal logins for accounts \u2013 email, financial, file sharing services, etc. \u2013 that can be compromised if you login on a public computer.<\/p>\n

They may not be the most convenient options, these workarounds, but they\u2019re more convenient than spending hours online with your credit card company, resetting all of your passwords, losing control of personal and sensitive data or having your identity stolen.

How to use a public computer \u2013 but only if you absolutely, positively have to.<\/p>Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If it is absolutely necessary that you check your email and the only way to do it is on a public computer, forward your email to a disposable email account like Mailinotor or Trashmail that has a short life and a timed expiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":5548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[246,763,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-5547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-data-theft","9":"tag-key-logging","10":"tag-scam"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/public-computers\/5547\/"},{"hreflang":"en-in","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/public-computers\/3814\/"},{"hreflang":"en-ae","url":"https:\/\/me-en.kaspersky.com\/blog\/public-computers\/3713\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/public-computers\/4204\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/public-computers\/4457\/"},{"hreflang":"ru","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.ru\/blog\/public-computers\/4770\/"},{"hreflang":"ja","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.co.jp\/public-computers\/4360\/"},{"hreflang":"ru-kz","url":"https:\/\/blog.kaspersky.kz\/public-computers\/4770\/"},{"hreflang":"en-au","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.au\/blog\/public-computers\/5547\/"},{"hreflang":"en-za","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.za\/blog\/public-computers\/5547\/"}],"acf":[],"banners":"","maintag":{"url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/tag\/scam\/","name":"scam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5547"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33262,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions\/33262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}