kodimaraa: Beware of Ctrl+C

Tuesday 24 January 2012

*Ctrl+C may be the most important work we do every day. But it’s not

a very safe thing to do. Read on to know why.

What happens when you press Ctrl+C while you are online. We do copy

various data by Ctrl + C for pasting elsewhere. This copied data is

stored in clipboard and is accessible from the net by a combination of

Javascripts and ASP. This is called clipboard hack problem.

*Just try this:*

1. Copy any text by Ctrl + C

3. You will see the text you copied was accessed by this web page.

*Surprised!* I know you are because I was also surprised to see it. Do

not keep sensitive data (like passwords, credit card numbers, PIN

etc.) in the clipboard while surfing the web. It is extremely easy to

extract the text stored in the clipboard to steal your sensitive

information.

Spread this information to as many friends as you can, to save them

from online frauds! It is true, text you last copied for pasting (copy

& paste) can be stolen when you visit web sites using a combination of

JavaScript and ASP (or PHP or CGI) to write your possible sensitive

data to a database on another server.

*How Clipboard Hack is done?*

The Clipboard hack is done by the following Source Code:

*<script language=”JavaScript”>

var content = clipboardData.getData(”Text”);

alert(content);

</script>

How to safeguard yourself from Clipboard Hack Problem?*

To avoid clipboard hack problem, do the following:

1. Go to internet options->security.

2. Press custom level.

3. In the security settings, select disable under Allow paste

operations via script/Allow programmatic clipboard access. (Scripting

sub heading).

Now the contents of your clipboard are safe.

Interestingly, this hack works only on internet explorer, and not on

Mozilla Firefox browser. Please share this article to as many friends

as you can to make them aware of this issue with CTRL+C.

Thanks & Regards,

kodimaraa