Keylogging Programs Steal Poker Password

[theBruiser500]

In a new thread in this forum the one about someone getting their neteller money stolen people said he might have been the victim of a keylogging program. I've always been a little apprehensive about logging onto my poker account from other peoples computers because of keylogging programs. Do these programs actually exist, do people have them, should I be worried about logging onto my poker site from different computers for fear they are keylogging?

[DesertCat]

Yes. I'm always concerned about using public internet terminals because of this potential problem. I'd rather travel with my own laptop so I know it's not compromised.

[theBruiser500]

But is it a valid concern we have or just us being silly?

[TobDog]

It depends on the computer. If it belongs to your parent, probably not, if it is a public terminal someplace, who knows. Should you be worried, yes, but most key logging programs are attached to spyware(you type in the work poker and a browser pops up with some poker sites, I have had these on my computer, they are a pain but they are gathering iformation to try to sell you something, not necessarilly steal something. I did hear of a guy who ha d akey logging program on his computer and people would find his email passwords and other security stuff and went online and used his private info for lewd acts, unless you have many enimies, I wouldn't worry about being singled out, just keep all your secure stuff, secure.

[Yobz]

[ QUOTE ]
But is it a valid concern we have or just us being silly?

[/ QUOTE ]

Both. Keyloggers do exist (they are not hard to make and not hard to find) but actually going onto a comprimised computer and the person knowing about neteller and poker and knowing how to take money out, etc, etc, etc would be kind of rare. Either way, I don't log onto neteller form a public terminal.

[blendedsuit]

I cleaned my mother's computer during a recent visit. Using spy-bot and ad-aware they discovered some sort of keylogger program embedded in the computer.

[GrannyMae]

But is it a valid concern we have or just us being silly?

bruiser, i had TWO keyloggers installed on my machine just by visiting a phishing website. i downloaded nothing at all, just visited the URL.

they were easy to remove (with some help from the hijack this forums, where a poster also found some nasty malware that none of the spyware scans caught). i found the keyloggers before any damage was done, but they are easy to get and can screw you bad if you don't do a daily spy/virus sweep.

[Stupendous_Man]

[ QUOTE ]
But is it a valid concern we have or just us being silly?

i found the keyloggers before any damage was done, but they are easy to get and can screw you bad if you don't do a daily spy/virus sweep.

[/ QUOTE ]

And I thought I was being the good little boy by running Ad-Aware on a weekly basis. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[RunDownHouse]

Two easy things to do to make your computer more secure:

1) Don't use Internet Explorer. Its horribly exploitable, and an inferior browser to boot. Use Firefox (www.mozilla.com) instead. I went so far as to edit my computer's group policy to disallow IE from running in many different situations.

2) This is a little more involved, but I never run as an administrator. I'm running Windows 2000 Pro, but setting up a new user should be similar.

Right-click 'My Computer' and click on 'Manage.'
Click on 'Local Users and Groups.'
Click 'Users.'
Click 'Action,' at the top of the window.
Click 'New User' and fill in the information.

Running as a typical user means that you don't have many of the rights an admin account does, including installation rights. Thus, if you do run into some nasty spyware or virus, it can't install itself on your computer since you don't have the rights to do so. There are some hassles with this. For instance, Party hand histories won't be written to your harddrive, so playing poker and running PT while a normal user is a big pain. For that reason, when I'm playing I log back into my admin account, and for all other uses I run on my user account.

Setting up another account is a bit tricky for someone not very experienced with computers, and you'll have to kind of teach yourself the differences between running as a user and as an admin, but it will make your machine infinitely more secure. Between that and Firefox, you'll be way ahead of 95% of other windows users.

[sellthekids]

I'm sure you can even find some commercial key logging software. Some corporations use it to keep tabs on their employees.