Anyone renting publicly available computers when they travel, or using computers available in hotel business centers, or airport kiosks should be cautious about the types of transactions they conduct on those machines. Security Focus is reporting that a New York area man has pled guilty to installing software onto publicly available computers at 13 New York-area Kinko's stores that logged the keystrokes of all of the people who rented those machines.

The story details how 25-year old JuJu Jiang collected data from those machines for nearly two years, "us[ing] victims' financial information to open new accounts under their names, and then siphon money from their legitimate accounts into the new, fraudulent ones."

The story goes on to explain how, in one instance, Jiang remotely retrieved personal data from a victim's home computer. After the victim had previously used the remote access service GoToMyPC, from a Kinko's computer, Jiang was able to use the victim's captured account information to remotely access the victim's computer and set up a financial account at a third site in the victim's name.

This episode illustrates the importance of keeping sensitive data stored and accessed only from secured machines. Additionally, sensitive data should be password protected and encrypted to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. For more information on keylogging software and protecting your privacy & security online, see:

• Protecting Your Privacy on the Internet