paranoid keylogger

ysbeer · n00b Joined: 08 Jul 2016 Posts: 65

I am a bit paranoid by nature; today i used my mom her Desktop Windows 10 PC to; (1) open op notepad (2) print the text with external usb printer (3) did NOT saved the notepad (4) closed the notepad (5) computer was offline during this procedure

the information i used to print on her Desktop PC, was sensitive to me, and i want to make sure; because the computer was OFFLINE while i was printing, and i did not save the notepad, could the text be obtained by a "possible" key logger or any other type of malware" ?

jonathan183 · Guru Joined: 13 Dec 2011 Posts: 311

Store and send information later is a simple approach which could be taken, a Linux forum is not really the place to get an answer on Windows 10. Windows 10 default settings will not respect a users privacy so using it for anything sensitive and connecting to the net at some point in the future is going to be difficult. If you have reason to believe the PC has been compromised then that needs to be addressed.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 11:04 am Post subject:

ysbeer,

Windows does agressive swapping. The things you printed were probably written to C:\pagefile.sys which is a hidden file.
They were probably written to the printer buffer on disk too.

The pointers to this data will be gone now, so it can't easily be recovered.

A keylogger does what it says, logs keystrokes. It would not record the content of your document unless you typed it there.

Your paranoia can be satisfied by booting moms system with a live Linux distro that does not save anything to the HDD.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

ysbeer · n00b Joined: 08 Jul 2016 Posts: 65

i could not boot a linux dvd on her Desktop and did not had the time to look into solving it.

if i understand correctly it is not easy to recover the buffer data, and i doubt that the possible attacker i got in mind would put effort in recovering data from stored buffers, so that is cleared out,

however, when it comes to keyloggers: is it possible they could have picked up the document i typed during the offline session?

it sucks to be schizophrenic :-(

*edit* how big is the possibility that my mom who does not more then some basic email for her work and browsing travel websites, that someone got their hands on my data?

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 2:00 pm Post subject:

ysbeer,

Nothing is impossible.

As regards the probability, its pure guesswork. So, shall we use your crystal ball or mine :) ?
If you nave a motive for a directed attack and an attacker in mind, that might be different.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

ysbeer · n00b Joined: 08 Jul 2016 Posts: 65

EDIT - i am sorry for my psychotic spam messages, i will be leaving this forum for a while.

szatox · Advocate Joined: 27 Aug 2013 Posts: 2017