I always rely on ISAW (Internet Security And Warfare) when it comes to the juiciest news on the local internet and security (read as hacking/hacked) scene. Let me just share with you two articles that will make everybody aware on the importance of using a strong(er) password and what keyloggers are really all about. To quote:

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Strong password; weak owner

And you thought that @#jbrem*+ is a safe password, but why do I have it? How about IlfIltIltGatGlm?, It looks safe but again why do I have it? These are two of the 30 passwords that I have collected when I went to an Internet Cafe in a big mall in Manila yesterday. Other passwords include “cutecute” “hanuka123” “god” etc. The accounts of these passwords inlude corporate email, yahoo, gmail, buyandsell, jobstreet and more.

ISAW reported about the proliferation of keyloggers in almost all Internet cafes in Manila. I have experienced it first hand yesterday. By pressing CTRL + ALT and A, a password dialogue box will appear for administration, to my surprise the password of the Perfect Keylogger of that internet cafe is “password1″. I tried their other available computers and all have the same passwords.

How many Filipinos are using the internet cafes for sensitive transactions? If you are an Internet cafe user and have accessed your email and other applications that require a password then you are at risk.”

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Keyloggers in cafes sanctioned by the government

ISAW was informed that most of the keyloggers in Internet cafes are sanctioned by the governmet. An Internet cafe owner informed us that some personnel of a law enforcement agency has approaced him and talked to him about the possibility of putting keyloggers in all of his internet cafes. The trade-off is that they “will not be touched” with their use of pirated copies of some software.

“If you have heard of the arrest of a communist rebel in Mindanao, the information that resulted to that arrest was extracted from one of the PCs in one of my cafes.” The email sender claiming to be the owner of an Internet cafe in Sampaloc said that he agreed not because of the trade-off, since he is using licensed software, but because of the good that it would bring to the community.”

Stay safe online.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert “Bob” Reyes is a technologist, an ICT Consultant and Tech Speaker, a certified Google IT Support Specialist, and an Open Source advocate representing the global non-profit Mozilla (makers of Firefox) in the Philippines. Bob is a Technology Columnist for the Manila Bulletin Publishing Corporation and an aviation subject matter expert contributor for Spot.PH.

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