Anti Keylogging & Public Computers

Do the computers you open to the public need an anti-keylogger? Without a doubt, the answer is yes. Hackers and identity thieves are increasingly making public computers a prime target for their scams and general wrong-doings, and in order to keep the users of your public computers safe, daily scans for hidden keyloggers are an absolute necessity.

Although offering public access to computers is undoubtably a good thing, the difficulty lies in the fact that you have no idea if your computer user is a legitimate user, or if your user is in fact an identity thief. If your user does turn out to be an identity thief, every user who logs into that computer after the thief will have their information compromised. This was the case in Manchester England in 2010, when the city's public libraries found keyloggers had been installed on a large number of their public computers. Every computer-user at the Manchester libraries had their personal information compromised as a result.

So what can your organization do to combat the rise in public computer keylogging? First, if at all possible, keep a record of who uses your public computers at what time. In this record, be sure to include contact information for every user, because as we will see, you may need to get in touch with them later. Second, run daily anti-keylogging scans of all public computers at the start and end of every day. Why twice? Because if an identity thief has stolen financial or credit card information from one of your users, you do not want to give them any more time to use this information to steal from your users. By running daily anti keylogging scans of your public computers, you can ensure that your users are safe from keyloggers. An anti-virus program is simply not sufficient, as you can see in the results of tests conducted between SpyReveal Anti Keylogger and its competitors.

So what do you do if you find a keylogger on a public computer? First, immediately remove the keylogger with SpyReveal. Next, contact all users who have used the machine between the time you found the keylogger and the last time you ran a successful anti keylogging scan - this is why it is important to keep a list of who is using your public computers. You must contact each user, and inform them that their activities have been compromised, so that they may take the steps necessary to alert their credit card provider, change their passwords, etc. Lastly, alert law enforcement, who may consider checking other public computers in the area; in general, identity thieves compromise a number of computers in the same area at the same time.

So, without a doubt, it is extremely important to maintain the integrity of your public computers, and an anti-virus software just won't do. Providers of public computers have a responsibility to keeping their users safe when using their computers, and the only sure way to do that is with a quality anti keylogger like SpyReveal. If you're interested in implementing SpyReveal on your organization's public computers, please get in touch with us.