Know How: Protect your data from keyloggers
The easiest and therefore the most popular method of stealing sensitive data is by infecting the PC of a victim with a keylogger. These programs save all the information you type into your computer with the keyboard and send it to the thief. Fortunately, you can fend off danger by following our advice.
Keyloggers are not really complicated at work – all they have to do is to save logins and passwords you use on some websites by monitoring keyboard input – everything you type in, to put it in common language – and send it to a person or a data base later on. There are hundreds of people who lost access to their e-mail accounts, social services, online games or even their bank accounts. Such crimes may wreck havoc upon your life if you are not careful enough. As there are a few ways you can avoid being robbed of your privacy, we would like to help you by introducing them to you.
Use a password manager
Password managers are very useful tools – often they are additional features of a browser – that generate complicated passwords when you register an account somewhere. However, remembering a key that consists of 20+ characters may be difficult. Hence another feature of these programs – they save and encrypt your passwords so no one can access them, and when you want to log in somewhere they fill in the data automatically. Since you don't type anything yourself, it is next to impossible to steal your password from you – and that's precisely why it's worth considering whether you shouldn't try a program such as LastPass. You can read more on password managers here.
Change your passwords often
Even if your password gets into wrong hands, the odds are quite low that your account would be hacked immediately. Often your sensitive data is stored somewhere, and until somebody uses it illegally you have time to react. How...the answer is simple. Change your password. By changing your password often you minimize the probability of getting doped, since the password somebody stole is not valid anymore.
Use encrypting programs
While there are many anti-virus programs and firewalls, encrypting programs are becoming increasingly popular. These applications aim directly at securing your connection and fending off keyloggers.
To begin with, let's take a look at KeyScrambler Personal. This program is a free plug-in that co-operates with about 20 browsers, allowing you to rest assured that your passwords and logins are safe.
How does it work? Everything you type in on your keyboard is filtered and encrypted by KeyScrambler; only later does it pass the data to your browser. You see what you type the same way you used to, but keyloggers register only a flow of encrypted characters. The little green field indicates our data is being encrypted.
However, if you feel that you would like to extend safety measures to more than just the browser, Zeman AntiLogger Free may be worth considering.
This application works in the background the way KeyScrambler does, but it encrypts everything you type in, not only when you use Internet browser. The best thing about it? You don't have to configure anything – the program does pretty much everything for you.