iDefense has reported that there has been a 65% increase in Keyloggers from last year. Keyloggers are programs that hack computers and steal personal information.


iDefense has reported that there has been a 65% increase in Keyloggers from last year. Key loggers have increased from 3,753 in 2004 to 6,191 in 2005.

Keyloggers are programs that secretly install themselves, record the user’s keystrokes and send it back to the hacker. This puts the user’s personal information like bank accounts, passwords and other personal information at risk.

According to a Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. survey, hackers use such personal information to rob an average of $3,968 per victim. According to the survey, victims were forced to pay atleast a part of this and spent an average of 81 hrs on solving the case of keylogging.

The keyloggers depend upon many techniques to hack the user’s computer. Some of which are Internet Relay Chat and backdoor access to computers. There are groups that create keylogging programs and sell them to hackers.

Joe Payne, vice president, VeriSign iDefense Security Intelligence Services, said, “Keylogging is very effective method for hackers. Fraudsters can launch hundreds of keylogging attacks around the world in seconds, gathering sensitive data to conduct large-scale monetary transfers for their illegal activities.” [Source]

 

 

 

 

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