If you enter email username via a history list rather than typing it in and
have set the account to remember a password, would a hacker still be able to
gain access to them?
In this excerpt from
Answercast #25, I look at some common methods that hope to fool keyloggers,
and why they don’t work.
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Can a hacker gain access?
The short answer is yes.
Just because you didn’t type it in doesn’t mean that the hacker didn’t install some kind of software on your machine that isn’t sniffing things like your remembered passwords or history.
Stay hacker free…
You must, must, must make sure that the machine you’re using is malware free. That includes keyloggers, (which obviously would log keystrokes that you enter), but it would also include any kind of activity-capturing software that is now freely available to hackers: to do exactly what you’ve just described.
So, no. You cannot rely on alternative input methods:
- Like copy/paste,
- Like using History,
- Like using remembered passwords to bypass malware.
Malware can see it all.
Next from Answercast #25 – How do I get SFC to work if it calls for my original install CD which I don’t have?