Ride the Lightning

Keyloggers on Hotel Computers? Old News is New Again

July 16, 2014

I can't even think how many years ago it was that we read a study saying that there was an average of seven keystroke loggers on the typical public computer, including hotel business center computers.

But the government has made the story new again and it has traveled the Internet courtesy of Brian Krebs in his Krebs On Security blog. As Krebs reported, the U.S. Secret Service has sent a non-public advisory to companies in the hospitality industry to inspect computers made available to guests in hotel business centers, warning that crooks have been compromising hotel business center PCs with keystroke-logging malware in order to steal personal and financial data from guests.

These days, it is easy enough to bring your own secure computing environment. In a pinch, if you want to look up sporting event scores, have at it. But doing anything financial or accessing a company network on any public computer (including those in libraries, in cybercafés and on cruise ships) is just plain dumb. There is no way for you to know if the computers are compromised.

Assume they are and act accordingly.

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