Key Largo?

On By John GrubbIn Hacking, Internet

In 1981, Bertie Higgins had a Billboard Top 40 hit with the song “Key Largo.” (You can hear it if you watch the video above.)

I bring this up because someone asked me, after his email had been hacked for the second time, was it possible “that a hacker put a key largo on my computer?” While I enjoyed the momentary travel back in time to Bertie’s song, I nicely corrected him and said, “I believe you mean a keylogger.”

For those readers who don’t know, a keylogger is a piece of software which does exactly what it sounds like it would do. It records all the key strokes you make on your device and then, usually, sends a report of what you typed to some hacker far, far away. With that information in hand, the hacker might be able to get access to any of your accounts that require a user name and password. For example, if your email got hacked and you went in and changed the password (the first step always recommended), if there was a keylogger on your machine, the hacker could just use the new password and hack your account again.

How do you know if there’s a keylogger on your computing device? There’s special software to find keyloggers. However, it is unlikely that you’ll have to use that kind of software if you prevent the keylogger software from getting onto your machine. How do you do that? Here are some suggestions:

  • Keep your anti-virus/anti-malware up-to-date (Yes, iMac users, this includes you. Yes, Android users, you too.)
  • If your anti-virus/anti-malware software warns you to not go to a site or to not download something, heed the alert and don’t do it!
  • Don’t allow strangers on your devices – Windows, Apple, Google and others are NOT calling you to tell you something is wrong and they are not causing pop-ups to appear on your machine. Naturally, it’s safe to allow 4KCC onto your machine through Remote Technical Support.
  • Don’t plug in USB drives or SD cards from others unless you are 100% sure they are safe. Even then, you should scan them before copying any files from them.
  • Don’t install browser extensions unless you’re sure they are safe. Not sure? Check with us.
  • Don’t respond to Facebook Messenger or other text messages which ask you to “click here” or “sign in to see this.”

As I always say, the advantages of the Internet far outweigh the disadvantages but you can’t let down your guard!