Saturday, June 19, 2010

Shocking news about CTRL+C clipboard hacking

Ctrl+C may be the most important work we do everyday. 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

2. Click the Link: Clipboard Hack
(in internet explorer or netscape only)

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. Forward 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 Cipboard Hack is done?

The Clipboard hack is done by the following Source Code:

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.

Now the contents of your clipboard are safe.

Interestingly, this hack works only on internet explorer, and not on Mozilla Firefox browser. Please forward this article to as many friends as you can to make them aware of this issue with CTRL+C.