Now day’s internet hackers are using Internet cafes mainly so that it will be tougher to trace them. Most of us, who even have internet connection at home, uses internet cafes often, when it urgent and when we are away. But we must be careful while surfing from an internet cafe, since there is a chance for our personal information getting stored in the computer or for getting robbed by some other users. So important things we must follow are:
- Click the mouse carefully, never click (accidently) on the save password command, while you login to your accounts.
- It is better not to add any personal information from internet cafes, especially your personal address, Bank account information, Credit card numbers etc.
- Make sure that you've deleted all the files you've downloaded or copied to the computer before you leave the cafe.
- It is better not to login to your accounts which are not encrypted (i.e. web pages which doesn't starts as 'https://')
- It is also recommended not to plug any external storage devices like USB flash drives, external hard disks etc. since there is a chance for getting viruses enter to your device from the computer.
- Make sure you've cleared the private data from your browser before leaving the cafe. It will be available in the ‘Options’ menu of the browsers.
- Try to make online payments via a trusted payment processor (PayPal, AlertPay etc.), so that you don’t have to reveal your credit or debit card number.
These simple steps can protect you from getting cheated to a certain extend. So the most important thing is that to avoid adding personal information or other important documents from internet cafes. The browsers also perform a key role in protecting you from internet scams. For example Mozilla FireFox has a tool to prevent websites which are designed to get the personal information of people by mistaking them. So try to use the most trusted and popular browser and it is also good to use it’s latest version. Also using Antivirus is also very important. It is better to restart your computer in tha cafe before using it since most of the internet cafes use an application called 'Deep Freeze' which erases all the saved data once we've rebooted it and thus when you restart, if there are viruses or othe malicious codes, it will all get erased
Stay Safe.