Sunday, February 03, 2008

Security of Wireless Keyboards

While I was marveling at the convenience of wireless keyboards and mouse recently, a thought struck me - with all the worries over WEP and WPA, how secure are wireless keyboards which rely on simple radio frequency (RF) or Bluetooth technologies? Is it possible for a hacker to intercept your keyboard key strokes or even transmit fake keyboard strokes to your computer?

I went home and did a little bit of research and found that all is not that rosy, including this report on Microsoft's wireless keyboard. Even banks are at risk.
Logitech representatives say their RF wireless keyboards scramble their security codes each time the computer boots up. With more than 4000 possible combinations in the Logitech models, it's unlikely (though still possible) that someone else's nearby receiver would pick up your radio signals. HP is increasing the number of security codes for its keyboards from 2 to 256. (Source: PC World)
But how exactly does Logitech fare? Perhaps, not very good.

I am staying away from wireless keyboards for now.

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