Key Sniffer a vulnerability within your wireless keyboard

Huge vulnerabilities in cheap wireless keyboards have led to hackers being able to obtain private information inputted from the keyboard, Bastille reported earlier this week.

Key Sniffer, as it's been named, lets hackers obtain your information up to 250 feet away. The stolen data comes through on the hackers machine as plain text which allows the hackers to easily search through this information for information such as bank details, passwords, security questions and any confidential details that could be in documents or emails.

Key Sniffer had demonstrated to the public that as many as two-thirds of inexpensive wireless keyboards on the current market have no encryption whatsoever which leaves then vulnerable to the key sniffer attack.

Affected keyboards are made by eight known companies: HP, Toshiba, Kensington, Insignia, Radio Shack, Anker, General Electric and EagleTec.

How this Key Sniffer works is simple, a wireless keyboard uses packets of data to send to the computer connected, this packeted data is not encrypted on the devices listed above which makes the packeted data available to anyone specifically searching for it, the hacker uses the packet identifier to filter the wireless transmissions.

The hacker can not only collect data from the keyboard, they can also inject keystrokes to type remotely to a vulnerable computer, which could result in the hacker installing malware or stealing data.

Be aware of wireless keyboards and the software running them.