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Healthy Passwords

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Keystroke Anti-Loggers

There are several third-party anti keystroke loggers on the market. No major publications have evaluated these recently, so we are currently researching these products before making any recommendations. One recommendation we can make is to buy, read, and implement the advice in "healthy passwords". If you are still concerned about possible loggers, Windows and Mac both offer built-in virtual keyboards.

Keyboard loggers either hook into operating system core functions at the software level or they get deep into the core (kernel) and act at the hardware level.

Loggers which run at the kernel level can be bypassed by using a virtual keyboard. These are included with your operating system. For Windows, you can run this simply by typing start/run then key enter osk and click run. If your run menu is hidden, you can search help and will find a reference. Mac users need to go into system configuration / Language then check "Keyboard viewer". Once that is done, a small US flag will appear in the menu bar. Clicking on this then selecting "Show Keyboard users" will display the on-screen keyboard.

Some keyboard loggers also take screen shots of every mouse click also. In those cases, even a virtual keyboard won't help. Windows combats this a bit by offering a "hover to select" option which is configurable in seconds. If you hover the mouse over the key for x seconds, it will enter without a click.

There is a debate over using your browser's auto enter features to prevent keyboard logging. Using auto enter does not stop all keyboard loggers. Software based keyboard loggers hooking into SetWindowsHookEx() will still be able to read the auto-complete password. Using the virtual keyboard and configuring it to hover will prevent the lower level kernel loggers.

The only safe option to prevent keyboard loggers is to boot off a live CD. For more on Live-CDs take a look at Healthy Passwords Live CD List

Keyboard Logger Protection Link Description Platforms Price
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