4 Things You Can Do to Protect Your Online Accounts While Traveling

Part of the fun of taking an extended trip though Europe--or anywhere, for that matter--is keeping those at home up to date with your adventures. For most of us that means accessing the internet in order to use email, post a blog, and download digital pictures. Many travelers also need to access their bank accounts, pay bills, and take care of other business.

The great news is that there are internet cafes in all the major cities and large towns in Europe that you can use for a very reasonable price. The bad news is that many internet cafes are a major source of identity theft for unwary users. The same goes for internet terminals set up in hotel lobbies and youth hostels--and just about any other computer terminal that travelers have access to. In order to increase your chances of not being harmed by these, here are some rules and tips:

1. The most import rule is to always assume that the computer you are about to use is infected with some sort of keylogger (a program which records every keystroke you make), spyware, or virus capable to stealing your login information. If this concerns you (and it probably should), there are several things you can do:

• The absolute safest way to avoid exposing your information on an infected computer is to bypass its operating system entirely and use your own. You can do this very easily with a copy of the Linux operating system. It as simple as getting a copy of either Knoppix or Puppy Linux on CD, putting it in the public computer's cd drive, and then hitting reboot. There is almost no setup and you can surf the internet in relative peace because you are not using the same infected windows programs that everyone else is using--actually, you're not even using Windows at all. Then, once you are finished online, take out the Linux disc and reboot the computer to erase any record that you were even there. You should probably try both versions of Linux before leaving home, but I recommend Puppy Linux for its ease of use and tiny pawprint--the whole operating system runs in the computer's RAM, making it extremely fast even on the slowest computers.
  

• If rebooting is not an option, you can use your own flash drive with your own suite of preconfigured programs to bypass the installed programs on the public computer. This is a more secure--but not perfect--option for two reasons: most of these suites have an available virus scanner, like ClamWin, that you can use to quickly scan the public computer and make it somewhat safer for your use. Also, portable application suites are designed to leave no data on the host computer when they are done. I recommend the portableapps.com suite because it is totally free, easy to use, and constantly updated. An additional benefit is that if you are already a Firefox user, you can upload your profile from your home computer and take it with you, thereby giving you access to all of your links and favorite bookmarks on the road. You can also use the free image manipulation utilities available through portableapps.com to adjust your photos before you email them or post them to your blog. Additionally, if you are worried about losing your flash drive, you can always encrypt what's on it with a variety of encryption programs--many of which come preinstalled on the drive when you first buy it.
  

2. Another important rule is to avoid logging into your bank/credit card/financial services accounts from public terminals unless absolutely necessary. Make sure before you go that you have scheduled all your bill and credit card payments in advance. Also, make sure that your primary account (which you are using to pay for your travels as you go) has enough funds before setting out. If you must log in to these types of accounts plan on changing your password as soon as possible once you have established an internet connection from a secure computer.

3. Set up an email account that will exist only for your travels and then have your other email accounts forward their mail to it. This way, if someone does steal your password, they only have access to your temporary, disposable account and you can shut off the flow of forwarded mail from your primary accounts as soon as you are able to do so from a secure computer. Most providers offer email forwarding for free or for a small fee, which you can factor in as a small part of your whole trip's expense. I have found that Google's free gmail service works perfectly for this as it can check both webmail and POP3 based email.

4. Load your passwords into a free password safe like KeePass and then carry PortableKeePass with you on your flash drive as a portable app. This way you don't have to worry about losing your list of passwords somewhere on your travels and the electronic list that you do carry will be strongly encrypted to NAS security standards. I also recommend that you store a copy of your KeePass database on a free online file storage site like Windows Live SkyDrive service, which 25 free gigabytes of storage to anyone who has a hotmail account. That way, if you lose your flash drive, you can still access your passwords and other documents (like a scanned copy of your passport) from anywhere in the world.


Want to know more? See "8 Tips to Fool Keyloggers in Internet Cafes" by Christian Skoda.