Tag Archive for: explained
Keyloggers explained: How attackers record computer inputs
What is a keylogger?
A keylogger is a tool that can record and report on a computer user’s activity as they interact with a computer. The name is a short version of keystroke logger, and one of the main ways keyloggers keep track of you is by recording what you type as you type it. But as you’ll see, there are different kind of keyloggers, and some record a broader range of inputs.
Someone watching everything you do may sound creepy, and keyloggers are often installed by malicious hackers for nefarious purposes. But there are legitimate, or at least legal, uses for keyloggers as well, as parents can use them to keep track of kids online and employers can similarly monitor their workers.
What does a keylogger do?
The basic functionality of a keylogger is that it records what you type and, in one way or another, reports that information back to whoever installed it on your computer. (We’ll go into the details in a moment.) Since much of your interactions with your computer—and with the people you communicate with via your computer—are mediated through your keyboard, the range of potential information the snooper can acquire by this method is truly vast, from passwords and banking information to private correspondence.
Some keyloggers go beyond just logging keystrokes and recording text and snoop in a number of other ways as well. It’s possible for advanced keyloggers to:
- Log clipboard text, recording information that you cut and paste from other documents
- Track activity like opening folders, documents, and applications
- Take and record randomly timed screenshots
- Request the text value of certain on-screen controls, which can be useful for grabbing passwords
What types of keyloggers are there and how do they work?
The term “keylogger” covers a wide variety of tools, some of which produce the same results in wildly different ways. We’ll drill down into the different types and talk a little bit about how they work.
The first general category is keylogger software. These are programs that live on your device and record your keystrokes and other activity.
Perhaps the most common type of keylogger software is a user mode keylogger, sometimes called API-level…
Explained: Why the Russia-Ukraine war threatens to splinter the internet
In 2001, when the internet was staring at a slew of regulations from across the globe, Clyde Wayne Crews, a researcher at libertarian think-tank Cato Institute, proposed the idea of ‘splinternet’ — an internet splintered into disparate realms controlled by different dispensations or powers.
The fundamental proposal was to have more internets instead of having more regulations.
Over the past two decades, a splintering of internet has occurred in some limited ways. China’s ‘Great Firewall’ keeps American tech giants out while pushing online services developed indigenously. Russia, in 2019, passed the sovereign internet law — or the online Iron Curtain — that enabled the country to disconnect its internet from rest of the world.
The splintering
Crews may have been ahead of his time in propounding a splinternet. But the events of the past four weeks pose the first serious challenge to the way the internet has evolved into a global system of interconnected computer networks, that use the Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices.
However dystopian the idea may have seemed over these years, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does seem as a potential trigger for a splintered internet. France’s digital affairs envoy Henri Verdier, in an interview to Bloomberg News, recently stated that the combination of Moscow’s increasing online censorship attempts, combined with Ukraine’s repeated calls for Russia to be taken offline, could potentially offer the trigger for the eventual “fragmentation of the internet.”
“Will the unique, neutral, multi-stakeholder, free internet survive this crisis?” Verdier asked. “I’m not sure.”
The internet is essentially a global network of physical cables, which can include copper telephone wires, TV cables, and fiber optic cables, alongside wireless connections such as Wi-Fi and 3G/4G, that leverage the physical cables to hook users and devices on to the internet. Countries hook on to global web services via undersea cables or nodes that are connection points through which data is transmitted to and from other countries’ communication networks. The concept of the splinternet envisages blocks or…
Explained: Who gets VIP security cover, and how?
Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim has been provided Z plus category security by the Haryana government. The decision of the state government has generated considerable interest as Ram Rahim is serving a 20-year sentence for raping two women, and was released on furlough days ahead of the elections in Punjab on February 20.
Also, the Centre recently provided central security cover to 25 BJP politicians from UP and Punjab until the end of the ongoing elections. Among the beneficiaries are the BJP candidate from Karhal constituency in UP’s Mainpuri, SPS Baghel, who is up against Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, and several Congress turncoats in Punjab.
Earlier, after the West Bengal Assembly elections, the Centre had provided central security cover to all 77 BJP MLAs amid reports of political violence in the state.
So, who gets protection from the government, either at the Centre or in a state?
Protection is generally given to someone who holds a position of consequence either in the government or in civil society — hence the informal description “VIP security”.
But the Centre is usually not keen to give protection to individuals — and therefore, a large number of even “important people” whose lives are deemed to be in danger, are provided security by state police forces based on assessments made by the state government.
Who decides the level of security protection an individual needs from the Centre or a state?
The level of security is decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in the case of the Centre, and by the state government in the case of states.
The assessment is based on inputs received from intelligence agencies, which include the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing at the level of the Centre, and the state intelligence department in the case of the state government.
Agencies give a broad subjective assessment of the threat to life or injury to a person from terrorists or any other group based on information generated from their sources. This information can include intercepts of phone conversations, human intelligence, or a credible analysis of an open threat.
By reason of the positions they hold in the government,…