Keylogger’s Can Wreak Havoc

Posted by Ken

New here? You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Keylogger spyware can be responsible for turning your world upside-down, in some ways more than a computer virus. What’s a keylogger? It’s a software program that runs in the background on your computer, hidden from view, and secretly recording you’re every move. The places you go and what you type are sent electronically to someone else. Once they get your username and password (because they know what you typed and where you typed it), you may not know it until it’s too late.

One woman, a victim of this sort of spyware, was lucky. She managed to stop at least one account from going too far. But it wasn’t until she received an email informing her that her password had changed on one of her business accounts that she knew something was up. Someone had changed her password on eBay. She did a search for her user ID on the site and discovered that someone had been bidding on items in her name — and her money.

While she managed to warn merchants on the site that were selling items to this doppelganger, she couldn’t get to one in time: a Playstation was already on it’s way to Indonesia.

Things that can cause your computer to be infected with spyware are other programs that you know you’re downloading, but carry a hidden payload. Maybe it’s that link you clicked on in an email or instant message, or maybe even on a site, that invited in the malicious code. In fact, spyware has become so sophisticated that it can infect your computer just by visiting a Web site.

So what can you do to prevent this type of activity from happening to you and your family? Here are a few suggestions:

Get an antivirus package installed on your computer and keep it updated with the latest virus definitions.
Internet Explorer is a favor target among hackers. Try using another browser. Opera and Firefox are very popular and have different ways of battling such infections.
Use a spyware detection program to identify and remove spyware. Do this as regularly as you would running your antivirus software.
Install a firewall on your computer. This helps monitor traffic coming and going across your computer’s ports. Sunbelt Sofware has Kerio Personal Firewall that’s very good, in my opinion.
Even if you choose not to employ the ideas above, you can bump up your security settings in your browser.