Keeping your online accounts safe from your home computer can be difficult enough, but you’re at serious risk if you surf from an Internet cafe. The machine you’re using is not trusted and anyone could have installed all sorts of viruses, keystroke loggers, and scanning software to view your screen.

The problem is that most of us need to check out the Internet for a variety of reasons while we’re away on travel. Here are some good ways to keep your online accounts safe.

• Create a Dummy Email Account, and Have Your Messages Forwarded There – The easiest way to do this is to set up automatic forwarding on your personal (and work) email accounts. Almost all of the major email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) support this functionality. Look through the settings and you’ll be able to set this up in about 3 minutes and all you need to know are the two email addresses.
  • If you’ve got Gmail, it’s very easy to do. Here’s how.
• Use Meebo To Login To Your IM Accounts – Both Meebo and Trillian encrypt your Instant Message passwords so hackers can’t steal them as easily when you login. IM accounts often don’t contain much value, except to send malicious downloads to your friends. Meebo is an online service that lets you log in to your AIM, MSN, etc. account using your existing username and password. There is no stand-alone software that can be manipulated – just remember to change your passwords when you get home.
• Type A Bunch Of Random Characters In Notepad, Then Copy/Paste Your Password – Many Internet cafes have “keystroke loggers” installed on them, that is, the machine records everything that is typed on the keyboard. This information is then sent to some hacker somewhere. You can get around these types of attacks by typing in a bunch of random characters in Notepad (or equivalent) then copying the letters and numbers that make up your password.
  • For example -3wivfjL9O5VdjEwMYdsDqqo54aq!$G (iLOVEMYDoG)

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