South African Internet cafes are enjoying a brisk trade during the 2010 World Cup, but football fans are being warned to exercise caution when making use of the services they offer.
According to Symantec’s Con Mallon, while most South African cybercafes are legitimate businesses, experience has shown that they can be hotspots for cybercriminals, both physical and virtual.
“As an example, experience shows that many 419 scams are run from Internet cafes due to the relative anonymity they offer savvy criminals who are well aware that schemes run from their home PCs can be tracked.
“A more immediate danger is that many of these operations do not run updated or effective security software, leaving fans open to a wide variety of malicious cyber attacks.”
Mallon advises Internet cafe users always to check that the venue is using a recognisable security package before logging on and beginning a session.
“That’s only safe up to a point,” he adds. “Once fans have finished checking their mail or social network pages, they’re advised to cover their tracks by going to the web browser and deleting all cookies and history details resulting from their session.
“In addition, if they are using a USB device to copy data during their session, they should run a security scan on the device before downloading the information to their PCs.
“Finally, fans should refrain from doing any financial transactions, including Internet banking, from Internet cafes. That’s just asking for trouble!”