ITPEC IP April 2023 Question 35
Which of the following is an appropriate explanation of a keylogger that is a threat to information security?
Explanation
Monitoring and recording the keyboard input on a user's PC — a keylogger captures every keystroke, passwords and card numbers included.
A keylogger is malicious software, or a small device plugged between the keyboard and the PC, that records keystrokes and often sends the log to an attacker. Computers shared by many people, such as those in Internet cafés, are a common place to plant one. Countermeasures are antivirus software, not typing sensitive data on public PCs, one-time passwords, and software keyboards for entering passwords.
Answer (b)
Why not others:
- •(a) — shoulder surfing, a social-engineering technique of looking over someone's shoulder
- •(c) — a dictionary attack, which tries words likely to be used as passwords
- •(d) — war driving, searching for open wireless LAN access points while moving around
Key rule: Name the attack by its method: keylogger records keystrokes, shoulder surfing watches the user, dictionary attack guesses passwords, war driving hunts for wireless LANs.
Security · AI-written, may contain errors
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