Security hole still gaping?

article written by Heather.

A year or more ago, this was on the web to identify a potential security threat in Internet Explorer (but not in Firefox.) http://www.clipboard.googlemyway.com/  The threat was that your clipboard could be read when you visit a web site that has this line of Java code.

I came across the link while clearing out very old emails.  It still works but Internet Explorer does provide some protection now. I have misgivings about how far this is just window dressing. In any case try it and see.

It may not seem that your clipboard represents much of a security threat, unless you are unlucky enough to visit a site with such code when you have recently copied your credit card PIN in for another purpose.

However, today, just after transferring a huge number of Ms-Access records  to Excel and getting the “do you want to save the clipboard?” message , I realised that the clipboard often holds data that shouldn’t be available for general distribution. The records that might be held in the clipboard by a bank or a hospital could possibly harm someone. It’s not a completely trivial flaw.

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One Response to “Security hole still gaping?”

  1. Well, solution number one would be switch to something else :) (Posted from Opera 8.54 on Linux… Needless to say the clipboard attack didnt work! :) )