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Ars Technica reports:
The US Secret Service is warning hotel operators to be on the lookout for malware that steals passwords and other sensitive data from guests using PCs in business centers, according to a published report.
The non-public advisory was issued on last Thursday, KrebsOnSecurity reporter Brian Krebs reported Monday. Krebs said the notice warned that authorities recently arrested suspects who infected computers at several major hotel business centers around Dallas. In that case, crooks using stolen credit card data to register as hotel guests used business center computers to access Gmail accounts. From there, they downloaded and installed keylogging software. The malware then surreptitiously captured login credentials for banking and other online services accessed by guests who later used the compromised PCs.
The report is a poignant reminder why it's rarely a good idea to use public PCs for anything more than casual browsing of websites. Even when PCs are within eyesight of a business center employee, librarian, or other supervisor, and even when it is locked down with limited "guest" privileges, there are usually a host of ways attackers can compromise machines running either Windows or Mac OS X.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday July 15 2014, @11:29PM
Used condoms may still not be safe. Perhaps the headline should be, "Secret Service Just Figures Out Hotel PCs Aren't Safe." (No we weren't downloading porn from untrusted sites, that malware was there before we got here, just like those hookers in our hotel rooms.) Was there ever a time when hotel PCs could be trusted?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday July 16 2014, @12:59AM
As far as I am concerned, just use it to obtain status. I have no business accessing secure stuff from insecure terminals. And - heavens no - do not engage in anything that requires a logon or a payment of any sort. Maps? fine. Obtain inventory/pricing info? fine. Pirating a music? fine. Even paying a "micropayment" for a read of a news article... NOT! You cannot leave anything identifiable to you or use any codes which authenticate you. This is the one thing to me that hampers internet marketing the most... lack of trust. And our TLA's aren't helping that image one bit. ( Neither is LifeLock, who runs ads showing how a little info in the wrong hands will wreck your life instead of how the person who didn't do due vigilance and make sure the transaction was valid had to eat it.)
You might as well assume any time you are using public internet, its gonna be worse than eating a sandwich you found in the bathroom, with absolutely no accountability for who or what prepared it, or if it has been tampered with, and worse yet, make the assumption while you are at it that it is far more likely to have been tampered with than that hypothetical sandwich you found.
What you do have going for you is that you most likely will not get sick if you stick to the sealed items in the package, but stuff like honoring scripts can really ruin your day.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]