Business Travel Top Tips

Last month, the U.S. Secret Service advised the hospitality industry to inspect computers made available to guests in hotel business centers.

Criminals have been compromising hotel PCs with keystroke-logging malware in a bid to steal personal and financial data from guests.

This follows on from our Security Tips for Business Trips Blog in May detailing the increasing level of threat of data theft for business travellers.

Suspects used stolen credit cards to register as guests of the hotels; the actors would then access publicly available computers in the hotel business center, log into their Gmail accounts and execute malicious key logging software which captured the keys struck by other hotel guests. The suspects were able to obtain guests personally identifiable information, logon credentials to bank, retirement and personal webmail accounts, as well as other sensitive data flowing through the business center’s computers.

If a skilled hacker has physical access to a system at a hotel, business centre, airport or any other public place, it is more or less game over for the security of that computer. There is no easy way for the average user to know a PC has been compromised.

This is why Priavo blogs regularly advise people not to use public computers for anything more than browsing the Web. If you are travelling with business and need to print something from your email account, create a free, throwaway email address at 10minutemail.com and use your mobile to forward the email or file to that throwaway address, and then access this from the public computer.

Furthermore, adopting the following private security measures will protect your data while travelling; Use a travel laptop, switch off Bluetooth, wireless and camera’s, avoid or limit WIFI connection in public places, take care with USB’s and flash drives, keep your system updated and use a good anti-virus program, visit secure sites only, be email cautious and watch what you click, use encrypted storage devices like Ironkey, use disposable passwords while travelling and finally be wary of software and app downloads.