Posted on 09/18/2005 5:35:49 PM PDT by Crackingham
Bank customers know to shield their ATM passwords from prying eyes. But with the rise of online banking, computer users may not realize electronic snoops might be peeking over their shoulder every time they type. In a twist on online fraud, hackers and identity thieves are infecting computers with increasingly sophisticated programs that record bank passwords and other key financial data and send them to crooks over the Internet.
That's what happened to Tim Brown, who had account information swiped out of the PC at his Simi Valley store.
"It's scary they could see my keystrokes," said Brown, owner of Kingdom Sewing & Vacuum. "It freaks me out."
Brown learned of the scam only after security researchers stumbled onto a computer harvesting information from hundreds of PCs and felt compelled to alert some of the people who had the most data exposed. Realizing he was lucky to get the call last month, Brown changed his passwords and is hoping for the best.
"This even staggered us," said Alex Eckelberry, president of Sunbelt Software Inc., which found that the so-called keylogger program installed itself in a way most antivirus software could not block. "Online institutions now have to assume that the account holder may have been compromised."
SNIP
"We're seeing explosive growth in 'crimeware,' " said Peter Cassidy, the working group's secretary general. "It's really galloping."
Consumers are increasingly jittery: 42% say security concerns have caused them to change their electronic shopping habits, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
How old is the LT? Has it ever had the "Pepsi Syndrome"?
Could be the mouse pad, not software...
Even though I use a Mac, I don't install freeware, except from the Apple web site, or other trusted sources, like Adobe.
Mac OSX notifies you before it will download any executable, and asks whether you're sure you want to download it. You also have to enter the system administrator password to install it, even if you are logged on as the administrator. This prevents a lot of problems. It also requires you to give permission the first time a program runs, and requires you to give permission to get a password from the keychain (the storage area for passwords), the first time a program asks for it.
A lot of these are options on Microsoft, but apparantly it ships with all the doors unlocked, and you have to know how to change the settings.
I also turn off Java and Javascript if I'm going to a site I don't completely trust. Just a few things to keep the gremlins off the hard drive.
Agreed
These are things that I have been using for over a year and have had no trouble.
I just make sure they come from a reputable download site.
Thank you so much for the tips. I'll try this evening (or asap) and let you know if I find anything.
By any chance are you using an optical mouse? They get bizarre if dropped to often. If no optical mouse I think you have a laptop hardware problem. ALSO- You can always reformat and see if that solves the problem.
Suspect Claims Al Qaeda Hacked MicrosoftOf course, this raises the question: if they succeeded, how would anybody tell the difference?Suspected member of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, Mohammad Afroze Abdul Razzak, claimed that Islamic militants infiltrated Microsoft and sabotaged the company's Windows XP operating system, according to a source close to Indian police.
Afroze, arrested by Mumbai (Bombay) police Oct. 2, has admitted to helping plot terrorist attacks in India, Britain and Australia, India's Hindustan Times newspaper reported Saturday.
During interrogation, Afroze, 25, also claimed that a member or members of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, posing as computer programmers, were able to gain employment at Microsoft and attempted to plant "trojans, trapdoors, and bugs in Windows XP," according to Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, a New Delhi information systems and telecommunication consultant.
Prasad, moderator of an Internet mailing list on south Asia security and information warfare, told us that Afroze made the claims in a police confession. Officials in the Mumbai police commissioner's office were not immediately available for comment.
Somebody with physical access to the computer can install the keylogger and tell ZoneAlarm to give it permission. If the user doesn't check the list of permitted programs, this will go undetected.
Every Breath You Take bump.
How can that be unless they are looking at the actual keystroke information?
I am no expert, but I just thought the article implied these programs rip off passwords by reading keystrokes.
The only way to be sure of security is to not use the online banking.
Well that's not going to happen.
I have online banking, online Master and Visa credit cards, online 401K account, CD's, Money Market, Cell phone, online bill-paying etc etc.
It's too late to go back to the stone age now.
I just monitor all my accounts a couple times a week.
And if necessary I will change passwords on a regular basis.
If you have'nt physically secured the machine you have no security.
The first thing I do to secure a PC is disable VB and VB script. 99% of folks using a PC woild never know if Visual Basic has been removed, and it kills a majority of trojans in one simple step.
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