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Keystroke Logging Increases
JamesAlfaro writes "Hackers are likely to release more than 6000 keylogging programs this year--up 65 percent from the number in 2004--according to Reston, Virginia, security vendor iDefense." From the article: "Each variant could lead to anything from a few to several thousand infections, Ken Dunham, senior engineer at iDefense, said. Keylogger software typically tracks keystrokes on infected computers and is used to try to steal sensitive information such as user names and credit card data. The biggest problem with keyloggers, which silently relay data to attackers, is that they often go undetected, easily slipping past firewalls and antivirus software, iDefense, a division of VeriSign, said. "
For the moment it's fairly easy to find out when a machine has spyware. What would scare me is when a decent programmer will start to write such programs so that it is completely stealth and doesn't bring the machine to a grinding halt. After all, basically all spyware seems to be badly written and performance not an issue at all. A decent programmer, using all his skills could write a stealth spyware/keylogger that doesn't bog down the computer and goes undetected for a very long time. It shouldn't do popups, but just log the keys... A small background prcess could do this, and store locally, detect when a big download is started to camouflage its own traffic to the server by sending it while the big file gets downloaded. The day that that happens: we'll be all screwed.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Hackers are likely to release more than 6000 keylogging programs this year
Will there be a firefox plugin for one of those babies? Or am I still gonna be missing out on all the fun this year also?
Good thing I type everything in with charmap.
ßöôÝà!
easily slipping past firewalls and antivirus software, iDefense, a division of VeriSign, said.
But for $99.95 per system per day you can buy magic beans from iDefense that protect you against them, right?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
"Next year to be really, really scary on the computer security front", says a company which makes money from designing Comprehensive Solutions to Security Threats yet cannot decide whether keyloggers are silent but lethal or whether they have observable symptoms like a system slowdown (because you KNOW your 1 GHz Pentium just crawls when it tries to do processor-intensive tasks like parsing keyboard input). Honestly, these kind of folks give security research a bad name. Its like the doctor down the street who says "Hey, AIDS cases are likely to increase next year -- symptoms include coughing or feeling less energetic than you usually do. Be afraid!"
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Password Security doesn't mean a damn when you're getting logged or someone is sniffing them over a network
Change your passwords regularly.
If that's too much trouble, rotate easy to remember (yet secure) passwords
While you're at it, change the password on your luggage.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I've been considering building some sort of e-commerce appliance for my less technically-inclined family members...essentially a low-end PC that will only boot off a Puppy Linux CD. All online financial transactions would take place only over this PC. Since the whole OS is on CD, it's fairly immune to the traditional spyware strategies (being Linux helps a bit as well
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
How do they know you say?
By infecting the hackers with keyloggers offcourse!
Fortunately, Microsoft Keylogger 2006 will be included with Vista, and will report all your passwords to Redmond in a convenient and user-friendly way, establishing a de-facto industry standard in modern keylogging solutions.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The first line of defense against these things is avoiding the trap of downloading things that may contain them. Same old saw: don't download anything from people you don't know or trust. Don't open suspicious emails. Problem is, no matter how much you say it, the common computer-user doesn't heed the warnings. People are too gullible for their own good and there are so many get-rich-quick, boy-that-sounds-interesting types out there that its only a matter of time before one of these things spreads
Of course, what the article fails to mention is the corporate use of keyloggers, to see just what you've been saying on Slashdot, or worse, the number of people who install them on purpose to trap an unwary spouses or their mischievous kids.
Ultimately, we should all be installing anti-keylogging software right along with our anti-virus. That will work, until the forces of evil come up with the next generation of spyware.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Why spend actual money (even a low-end PC costs you what, a couple hundred dollars) just because of the hype, especially when you know darn well the likelihood of it ever getting booted up is zilch (particularly if technologically less-than-savvy people get an urgent "Don't wait, update your account information today!" email in their inbox -- which, incidentally, leaves them 100% as screwed no matter what Linux distribution you're using)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Obviously software keyloggers are a huge threat. But there are also hardware keyloggers that hardly ever get mentioned. They get plugs in usually between your ps2 port and your keyboard. They are very small and can store MB's of data. Since people hardly ever look back there, they are very hard to detect. Of course physical presence is required to use this, but I'm sure some of my coworkers would love to play with one of these.
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
More info here:
http://security.resist.ca/keylog.shtml
Anti-Key logger:
http://www.anti-keylogger.net/
FCheck: http://www.geocities.com/fcheck2000/fcheck.html
I don't know if will stop a keystroke logger, but it is a cool idea, nonetheless: http://www.kittytech.com/defaultx.html
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I work for a university and supervise multiple public computer labs for students.
One of our employees decided it would be a brilliant idea to install a key logger on a handful of our computers. Our security software would have easily detcted/prevented the installation, but this employee had administrator passwords, allowing him to bypass the security software (since then, passwords have been restricted, which leads to massive inefficiency but higher security). He quietly disabled the security - especially anti-virus - software on these computers and let the program do its work.
The key logger was discovered approximately 6 weeks later when an icon for it randomly popped up on the desktop (I do not know the name of the key-logger software). A patron reported the strange icon, and the lab assistant reported it to management.
All 600 people who had used these computers in the last 6 weeks were notified almost immediately of the breach and instructed to change all their passwords and monitor their credit reports for suspicious activity. A lengthy FBI investigation began, and finally one employee was singled out. Luckily, there is no evidence he used any of the information he had gleaned from these computers.
This employee faced jail time, but ended up accepting a plea bargain for 5 years probation and a $5,000 fine. He has since fled the country.
Moral of the story - these things are quite serious when installed on the right computer, and those that install them in person could receive jail time. Now, even one hint of a key logger appearing on a computer in the labs is enough to drag in all of our technical staff at any hour to heavily investigate and reimage all nearby computers. We'd rather not have to go through any more investigations with the FBI.
If you have access to a computer (or more specifically behind a computer) just add one of these:
for PS/2 Keyboards
or for USB Keyboards
Anti-virus and anti-spyware won't protect you from this kind of technology.
And they said zombies weren't real!
In trying to assist the average Windows user, I think Microsoft could do something to help aid fight against unauthorized spyware/viruses:
When I open the task manager to view all my running processes, there are usually a ton of programs running. Some I recognize (explorer.exe, System, firefox.exe, etc.) but some I have no idea what they are. Some are from my firewall (BlackIce), some are anti-virus (mcshield.exe), some are other system processes (mdm.exe: the machine debugger), and some I just plain do not know what they are. There are various sites where I can search for these programs, but when there are 50-60 in the list, it gets quite tedious. What would be nice is if the task manager actually produced a mouse-over popup (much like an 'alt' tag in HTML) that gives information about the process. Now this would have to be part of task manager, and not a factor of the application, or malware could just say that its some important legitimate file. I don't know if this is possible, feasible, or even necessary, but I know it would make it a whole lot easier for me to examine all of my currently running processes.
Just a though in light of the keystroke logging article.
And they said zombies weren't real!