How to avoid keyloggers by scramble keystokes on public computers ?

First things first! Always try to avoid accessing your online accounts from public computers (cyber cafes…etc). With all the keyloggers that may be stuffed in public computers, they pose a serious security risk to users. Keyloggers mean not just trojans, but commercial keyloggers as well.

What are keyloggers ?

Key Loggers are software or hardware tools to that captures the user’s keystrokes from keyboard. It can be useful to determine sources of error in computer systems and is sometimes used to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks. However, keyloggers are widely available on the Internet and can be used by private parties to spy on the computer usage of others hence stealing users private data.

Aim of this post on keyloggers

Our aim here is to confuse the keylogger by making it log some gibberish instead of our valid password. Off course, this is not completely foolproof though. Nothing is foolproof on the net. We only have to make it harder for the hacker.(Note: These are tips I personally follow. If you have better ones, let everyone know by commenting here.)

Types of Key Loggers

We’ll be dealing with two types of keyloggers; software and hardware keyloggers.

Software keyloggers on the other hand are much more complex and hence difficult to deal with. Most of them record keystrokes, mouse events, clipboard activity..etc. So our best bet is to scramble the keystokes smartly.
Hardware keyloggers are much easier to detect. They are mostly attached between the keyboard and the CPU. A manual inspection should be enough in most cases.

How to confuse and avoid the software keyloggers ?

Let’s say we have to enter a password ‘jazz’.

Click the password box, type any random key. Select the entered random key with the mouse and type j. So we entered the first letter of the password.
Click the password box, type a random key. Again click and type a random key. Select the last two letters with your mouse and type the next valid key of your password.

In this case we managed to enter 2 unwanted characters as against one in the first step.

Continue in a similar way to finish typing the password. You can choose any number of random characters between your password.

So the keylogger will log something like:
[click]b[click]j[click]g[click]m[click]a[click]v[click] z[click]t[click]c[click]z

Note how we used unwanted mouse clicks so that a mouse click is recorded before the random letters also. You can also experiment entering the password in the reverse order, infact any order.

This method can be used for entering the username too, since most banks have account numbers as username. If you are suffering from some keylogger phobia, use this technique while typing the url too.

Another way is utilizing the browser’s search bar or address bar to camouflage the password.
For eg. Click the password box and type a letter of the password. Now click the browser’s address bar or search bar and type some unwanted letters. Alternate between the password box and address/search bar till you finish. The result will be the same as the former method.

How to find the hardware keyloggers ?

Hardware key loggers are easy to find. They are devices which is attached in between keyboard and cpu junction. If you are really suspicious about them just check the back side of cpu and find if something is fishy. The images will give you a better idea.

Feeling secure? Well, this sort of stuff may not work against the really smart keyloggers. Yeah, the one’s that also take a screenshot when a keystroke or mouse event is detected.
There’s is a solution for that too, but it is cumbersome. Take a Live CD of any of the Linux distributions. Insert and use ( and hope Linux will detect the hardware so you can start surfing; I have read Ubuntu Linux is good.). Even if you can successfully access from the Live CD, don’t forget to use the above tips to workaround the hardware keylogger.

Again as I mentioned in the beginning, always try to avoid dealing with confidential data from Public Computers. What are the precautions you take? Do you know a better technique? Feel free to comment….

This post was contributed by Vijeesh from Tech Xpress , it is a Technology Blog committed to writing on the Web, Software and related News. So what are you waiting for? Enrich your ‘tech life’ and get rid of annoyances with tips & tricks from Tech Xpress.

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About The Author of this article:
Ashish is one of the co-author of this blog and writes on various interesting softwares, PC tips and more. You can read more of his articles here.

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Tags: hardware_keyloggers, keyloggers, software_keyloggers

48 Comments and Link-Backs to “How to avoid keyloggers by scramble keystokes on public computers ?”

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33 Comments from Friends and Readers

Brown Baron, June 26, 2007:

The part about checking for hardware keyloggers was enlightening. Nice job.
Shankar Ganesh, June 26, 2007:

OMG! This post is amazing. I’ve always pondered on how to fool keyloggers. Thanks a lot for this post, Vijeesh.
Gili, June 26, 2007:

Great post, stumbled. Visited your post, and was impressed from the content.

Very nice,
Gili
Ken Xu, June 26, 2007:

Great! evil Keyloggers are dangerous! Should know how to protect ourselves from them. And this post provide you the solution! Great!
Vijeesh, June 26, 2007:

Brown, Shankar, Gili, Ken….
Thanks a lot for your replies.Glad you liked the post.
Madhur Kapoor, June 27, 2007:

Nice post man . I was always worried about these when using other computers . But this trick seems cool . And i never knew Hardware key loggers existed .
Ashish Mohta, June 27, 2007:

As an update, this post got 2000 UV from Stumble. Thanks to everybody and Vijeesh for this great post
shashank, July 1, 2007:

great post Vijeesh ….
To tell you ,this type of fooling the keylogger won’t make any difference ,i used to use some keyloggers to prevent my friends sitting on my computer …..i.e they used to have chat in yahoo im and i installed the keylogger so as to know their pass and have some fun now they didn’t dare to chat on my personal computer its personal right

The keylogger stores and sends the username and password which is used to log in the time when you hit enter and it can’t be fooled that way ..i am talking about the yahoo messenger keyloggers here …and almost same applies to all other..this type of workround will not work with the keyloggers, they ve become smart enough///

hardware keyloggers are really awesome devices i would surely want one

taking a live cd is really a good option for hardware keyloggers the best thing will be if you spot a harware keylogger then see here and a there and carefully remove it from between the keyboard and pc and give it to me
Vijeesh, July 2, 2007:

Shashank - Thanks for your appreciation and the comment.

I guess you are talking about Yahoo Messenger keyloggers that record the username and password when a user hits the “Sign in” button.
If there are indeed such keyloggers, they aren’t recording keystrokes when a user types them. They are decrypting the information in the password and username boxes of Yahoo Messenger. This would mean its got more to do with Yahoo Messenger’s weak encryption algorithm.

You said you’ve used keyloggers like this in the past. Have you tested the method mentioned in the post? And that too with the latest Yahoo Messenger.
Test it if you have the keylogger and let everyone know. Will be very helpful.
shashank, July 3, 2007:

i ve used this method on the previous versions of yahoo messngrs but those keyloggers will not work on the present versions of yahoo messengers….that was a long time back …now no time for all those things…
pchere, July 3, 2007:

Very informative. Now I know what to do on those public computers…
Ashish Mohta, July 4, 2007:

@PC: Glad u liked it This is one of the best post now
Haris, September 10, 2007:

Security is always first! Awesome post - Stumbled!
Ashish Mohta, September 10, 2007:

Thanks Harish!!!
shalu, September 20, 2007:

great work

i wanna know something more abt it……would u like to give sum more information abt it………bcoz..the topic is interesting and i wanna give seminar abt it.
plz help me regarding this aspect…..
Sunny, October 17, 2007:

you are absolutely right , its not good idea to use sensetive information on public computers. I think even best way to protect from all these kind of misery is to use linux but there is one thing which i dont like about linux and that is their word processor. its font looks too crappy.. however, that was not point of discussion over here.

overall , quite informative post for most of the users.
disable-install, December 10, 2007:

Why “confuse” software keyloggers. If you know you have one, remove it. If you don’t know if you have one, are you going to enter passwords like this every time? That’d get old quick.
Ashish Mohta, December 10, 2007:

@Bash: Its a precaution when you go to cybercafe or public computers
linuxmonkey, December 25, 2007:

Linux Live CD is the best solution if you’re on a public terminal. Ubuntu has excellent hardware detection. At the worst, only audio and/or wireless network might not work without you setting it up manually, which isn’t a big deal at a public terminal.
Ashish Mohta, December 26, 2007:

@linuxmonkey: I would definetly agree with you. I haven’t tried ubuntu yet but seems to become an essential stuff will get in touch with it on new year
JP, January 6, 2008:

1. How about online screen board. Will it be still access by keyloggers?
2. Some banks provide script based online screen keyboard. it always change the key place. Keyloggers still can access that password tooo?

If you can please reply to my em@!1 to prakashjeyg(..)gmail(….)moc
Ashish Mohta, January 6, 2008:

@JP: A quick answer to your questions:

1. If its a software based key logger I think the online keyboard should be trackable but It has to be designed so.
2. Script Based keyboard , I don’t think so. They are particularly designed to bypass keyloggers.

However I will try to look for some more details on this. Your questions are very interesting. Let me see if I can find something on it.
stuvart, January 10, 2008:

Hi

How to enter int to other pesrson’s computers while chatting???via yahoo chat wanna install key loggers in others system..Is it possible????
Ashish Mohta, January 10, 2008:

@stuvart: Yes its possible but we tell how not do it !! and be safe from it
John Vogel, January 28, 2008:

It seems that if you logged into a sensitive account at a public places and before you logged off, you changed your password that this would be a foolproof way of protecting your password.

Would anyone agree or disagree with this?
John Vogel, January 28, 2008:

Or now I just thought of another way which I just tried. I copied and pasted characters from the acual browser page and pasted them into the password box. Eg. the word ‘Monday’ appeared on the MSN login page. I copied and pasted the ‘o’ in Monday into the password box. Then I went to the next letters in the password until I got them all in. Of couse I typed a few directly in.

Would this method work??
Vijeesh, January 28, 2008:

@John Vogel - Changing the password from public computers isn’t a good idea..Keyloggers can record everything you type. That would make your new password vulnerable.

The second method you mentioned isn’t safe either, especially if the keylogger is designed to monitor the clipboard..
Ashish Mohta, January 28, 2008:

@John: I hope those answers help you out. You can check back site in case you did not get notified.
@Vijeesh: Thanks for keeping track buddy. I was not sure of them.
Vijeesh, January 28, 2008:

@Ashish - No Problemo…
mymytri, April 1, 2008:

I never knew about hardware keyloggers.I thought only software keylogger exists.Your post helped me a lot.
guest, April 20, 2008:

The safest way I know of to log into an account from an internet cafe is http://kyps.net

password is not leaked at all to the computer.
Ground Info, July 26, 2008:

I dont myself download anything and every time I do, I check it for viruses. Of course it would be horrible to have keylogger, because even using difficult passwords wouldnt help
John Vogel, August 11, 2008:

My family and I are currently on a 2 1/2 year bicycle trip from the northern tip of North America to the southern tip of South America. We brought along a laptop to do all our banking, paying bills, website updates, email, etc.

My question is that if we log in various websites using someones network with my laptop (either through wifi or an ethernet connection) should I have to worry about someone stealing our passwords? How would you suggest we protect our passwords when we carry our own laptop?

Also could someone please recommend a program that will find and delete any keylogging program that may have gotten on our laptop?

Thanks!