The Bulletin
Technical Tips
By Tom Snyder Ph.D.

In an effort to squeeze more into our increasingly busy lives, we’re always looking for new services, devices and ways of doing things that will shave minutes off our daily activities or allow us to balance work and leisure. For example, if you’re at a conference, breaks are likely spent in the business center checking voicemail and email. If you’ve got several meetings in a day, you might stop at an internet café between meetings to follow up on action items from the previous meeting. If you’re on vacation, you might start each morning with a quick “office” check in. The hotel lobby internet kiosk allows you to do that on your way to breakfast. Unfortunately, there are an increasing number of people attempting to exploit our new habits and devices to their advantage. The most recent
exploitation is keyloggers.

Keyloggers are applications that monitor a computer user's keystrokes and then send this information back to the application creator. Typically keylogger creators are looking for key email messages, credit card information and online banking or office network usernames and passwords. This information allows them to steal money or proprietary information that has monetary value.

While keyloggers have been around for a long time, the growth of spyware over the last year or so
means they warrant renewed attention. This is because spyware allows keyloggers to be installed on a computer with relative ease -- a user simply has to visit the wrong website. According to Slashdot, an online periodical that covers everything IT, the number of keylogger incidents at kiosks and internet café’s is rising sharply.

To combat the keylogger trend, I recommend traveling computer users not access:

• Work e-mail
• Office computer networks
• Shopping sites with the intent to pay for merchandise online
• Financial services (bank, brokerage, Paypal etc)
using computers at:
• Internet cafe's
• Internet kiosks
• Business service centers or
• other locations where the integrity of the computer can not be verified.

• Use any available internet connection, provided you use your own laptop which has spyware protection on it. Spyware protection will minimize the chance a keylogger is installed on your laptop.
• Use one of the prohibited computers above, provided you are using two factor
authentication e.g. RSA secure ID tokens. In this case, even if your password is captured, no one can access your computer network or bank account without your secure ID token. I also recommend changing your password to a temporary one before taking a trip and then switching back to your permanent password on your return.

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If you have questions or concerns about your particular situation, please e-mail me at tpsynder@xantrion.com.. I will use your input to direct future columns.
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