Are your keystrokes being recorded?

It's always nice to set the scene for these subjects it helps my over active imagination to write better, so lets sit back and imagine the following: you are browsing the internet, firstly you look up a few weird and wonderful subjects, then you tip over to that dodgy website your wife doesn't know about to catch up on that online affair you have been having. You ask how did you know? well if you have been watching any tech related news in the past week you would have seen a headline or two stating things like "popular sites record your every keystrokes" and the rest.

So you ask what does that mean, websites are recording my keystrokes so they have a bulk file filled with code and text and links right?  Well technically yes but someone also though it would be a good idea to create a software that plays back all of this stuff in a film like format, sound scary? well it is and as you can see from the video below were your "keystrokes" to get leaked you might be in a whole pile of doo doo pretty quickly.

Researchers from Princeton University's Centre for Information Technology Policy (CITP) analyzed the Alexa top 50,000 websites in the world and found that 482 sites, many of which are high profile, are using a new web-tracking technique to track every move of their users.

Dubbed "Session Replay," the technique is used even by most popular websites, including The Guardian, Reuters, Samsung, Al-Jazeera, VK, Adobe, Microsoft, and WordPress, to record every single movement a visitor does while navigating a web page, and this incredibly extensive data is then sent off to a third party for analysis.

"Session replay scripts" are usually designed to gather data regarding user engagement that can be used by website developers to improve the end-user experience. However, what's particularly concerning is that these scripts record beyond the information you purposely give to a website—which also includes the text you type out while filing a form and then delete before hitting 'Submit.'

If your starting to get cold sweats after reading the above then here are a couple of sites where you can educate yourself a bit further on this topic.

https://thehackernews.com/2017/11/website-keylogging.html

https://thenextweb.com/security/2017/11/21/hundreds-of-websites-record-your-every-keystroke-without-you-knowing/

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/websites-record-keystroke/

Stay safe online for Black Friday

In light of the popularity of the Black Friday phenomenon having made a full transition online shoppers need to be more aware that ever of how they shop online. This is a day that cyber criminals will be in full flight waiting to grab shoppers credit card and login information using eCommerce sites that are vulnerable. This is a day that shoppers need to be extra vigilante when shopping online. Silcon Republic have posted a number of tips to help customers keep safe and the article can be found here.

The main points from that article can be found below.

1) Consumers should be careful not to expose their computer or mobile screen to the eyes of strangers, especially when a credit card number is visible.

2) Online shoppers need to keep their computer updated with the latest malware protection. Even if a consumer conducts all transactions on a secure site, it is possible for the computer to be hacked or to be running malware, which means all data entered can still be stolen.

3) Be aware of internet connections. Using a public Wi-Fi service without encryption gives anyone the ability to hack into the connection and collect a user’s information.

4) Pay close attention to shopping websites. Many websites do not properly protect the data they collect. Shoppers can know the site is safe if it has a green lock in the address bar, which signifies the company has met strict standards with respect to protecting data they collect from customers.

5) Finally, shoppers should frequently monitor bank statements for suspicious transactions. Many times, cyber theft is done in small amounts in order not to draw suspicion.

If you need help in making your devices even more secure you should have a read of some of my posts on securing your laptop and iphone. All of my posts can be found on my blog.