gHacks technology news » keyloggers http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Computer Security Myth: Defeating Keyloggers With Onscreen Keyboards http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/15/computer-security-myth-defeating-keyloggers-with-onscreen-keyboards/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/15/computer-security-myth-defeating-keyloggers-with-onscreen-keyboards/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:57:51 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=13593 I recently came upon a few articles that once again offered the computer security tip to use onscreen keyboards to defeat keyloggers. Most of these tips are suggesting to install an onscreen keylogger or make use of the default one of the operating system to defeat keyloggers while making transactions on the Internet or working with sensible data.

The theory that keyloggers can be defeated with onscreen keyboards is unfortunately a computer security myth. It is definitely true that some keyloggers, especially those that only record the keys that the user enters on the computer computer keyboard, can be defeated with onscreen keyboards.

computer security

There are however advanced keyloggers which make a screenshot of the onscreen keyboard while it visible on the computer screen and which record the mouse movements on the system. It is then a matter of simply reconstructing the mouse movement to know exactly what a user typed on a computer system.

There is only one 100% way of defeating keyloggers and that is to not use computer systems for sensitive information. That’s not always practicable and it is possible to reduce the chance that keyloggers are installed by running good antivirus programs.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/06/15/computer-security-myth-defeating-keyloggers-with-onscreen-keyboards/feed/ 11 Type Text with your Mouse to increase security http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/02/type-text-with-your-mouse-to-increase-security/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/02/type-text-with-your-mouse-to-increase-security/#comments Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:23:39 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/02/type-text-with-your-mouse-to-increase-security/ Keyloggers record anything that you type and where you type it on your PC in a log and transfer those logs to the person – better thief – who did install the keylogger on your computer. He can then find out all the urls you visited, the passwords that you entered on those websites and what you did there as well.

The chance that your home system is infected by a keylogger is rather slim especially if you are a careful user with some basic computer security knowledge. The real danger lies out there in the real world and they go by the name public computers. There is no way normally that you can check if a public computer is running a keylogger in the background or another type of nasty virus or trojan that records your computer activity.

Safekeys is a small software that does not need to be installed which makes it an ideal application for such situations. It displays a virtual keyboard on your screen and you can use the mouse to type the asterisked password in. It supports all the chars that are normally located on a real keyboard.

protect your computer

The so created password is displayed in the Safekeys software and you have to mark and drag and drop it to the password field on the website or application that you want to use.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/02/type-text-with-your-mouse-to-increase-security/feed/ 7 Defeat Keyloggers with Keyscrambler for Firefox http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/28/defeat-keyloggers-with-keyscambler-for-firefox/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/28/defeat-keyloggers-with-keyscambler-for-firefox/#comments Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:32:35 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/28/defeat-keyloggers-with-keyscambler-for-firefox/ Keyloggers are a serious threat for everyone who is using the internet for sensitive applications such as online banking or shopping. The biggest thread in my opinion comes from trojans and viruses that log all keystrokes once activated. Other possibilities include local installations of keyloggers and successful hacking attempts.

Keyscrambler for Firefox is a add-on that encrypts the keystrokes and decrypts them in the browser. This ensures that the keyloggers can only log the encrypted keystrokes which protects the original data. Every time you enter data in a sensitive area a overlay is displayed which displays the encrypted keystrokes. The data is of course encrypted and entered correctly in the form to ensure that you can use the service as usual.

This add-on seems to be only working with Windows because it installs some additional files during the installation of the add-on which open a normal windows installation dialog. I did not experience the troubles that some of the comments described at the mozilla website. The add-on is running fluently without complications.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/28/defeat-keyloggers-with-keyscambler-for-firefox/feed/ 7 Defeating Hardware Keyloggers http://www.ghacks.net/2006/04/23/defeating-hardware-keyloggers/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/04/23/defeating-hardware-keyloggers/#comments Sun, 23 Apr 2006 12:20:01 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/04/23/defeating-hardware-keyloggers/ You probably read my article about the bank heist in London where the robbers used a hardware keylogger to recieve sensitive information that allowed them to perform wireless transfers. The bank made the decision to super glue every cable to the back of the personal computer making it impossible to add the keylooger between the keyboard and the computer.

Well, there is another possibility which means more work for the user: Onscreen Keyboards. Microsoft Windows comes preinstalled with an onscreen keyboard, open up the run dialog and enter osk.exe.

on screen keyboard

An application looking similar to the above will appear. You can now click on a symbol and it will appear in the form. This is great if you suspect that someone could log what you are typing. It´s a good way to enter a password relativly safely. This is of course not 100% foolproof.

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