Me, Myself and Technology

A UK Parliament’s computer was hacked by a six-year-old child after he managed to install a keylogger on the system. It was a part of a UK campaign meant to improve the security of the online activities using several experiments. The Get Safe Online program was started some time ago and is currently promoted through a website that presents useful statistics and number about the online security.

“A six year-old child has hacked into the UK Parliament’s computer system, installing a keylogger onto an MP’s machine. As part of an experiment run by the UK campaign ‘Get Safe Online’, the minister agreed to leave her PC unattended for 60 seconds. In a quarter of that time, the schoolgirl had successfully installed an application that monitored every keystroke without anyone noticing. The keylogger, if left undetected, would have recorded everything the MP wrote on her PC in the next six months,” the same author sustained.

A keylogger is basically an application able to record all the activities started by the users of a certain computer and save them for later view. The latest programs are able to send the logs to other users on the Internet by composing e-mail messages or even upload them on public FTP servers. At this time, there are a lot of keyloggers available for download but most of them are flagged as infected by most of the antivirus solutions currently installed. Although you might think you’re protected, it is extremely easy to design your own keylogger able to trick the protection system of your computer.

As I’ve already said before, the use of a keylogger is more than a way to hack a certain computer because you’re able to view all the private information stored by the users. It is a kind of privacy violation so we should really beware of this applications.