Protect your clipboard

8 comments

This isn’t a “gardening” subject but pc security is a big problem and so I hope this topic will be allowed.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll copy and paste long sequences – credit card numbers, passwords, registration codes for software and such – rather than type them in with the chance of error.

But then it stays on your clipboard until something else is copied and pasted, which will overwrite the previous entry. And if you get hacked in between, there’s your credit card number or password sitting there waiting to be stolen by someone else.

There’s a way to see what’s on your clipboard and delete it: I found it a while ago and it works for me, so I thought I’d pass it on.

http://www.worldstart.com/one-button-clipboard-viewer/

I had to use the search function to find my “clipbrd.exe” – it wasn’t where this article said it would be.

The article only covers XP and 2000, but surely it’d work in Vista and later if one could just find the “clipbrd.exe” file to start with.

It’s very useful: I can click on the link on my Quick Start menu and delete the current data, so my card details don’t stay visible for long.

As a PS, I don’t keep sensitive data on the PC at all: I have a USB key for all that – even my passport and bank account numbers.

Each file has its own password, and a separate Word file has all the passwords for each – which is itself passworded, so I only have to remember one password to be able to get at all the others.

I only plug in the USB when I need to; at other times it’s totally separate from the PC, and so, [fingers crossed] even if my PC gets hacked there are no sensitive data actually on the PC itself.

And all the files all have obscure names, so that there’s nothing to point to them even if they did get hacked; calling a file “credit card details” would be a bit of a give-away!

It’s sad that we need to be so protective, but, sigh, sign of the times.

Noticed that the link I gave isn’t in clickable form; it’ll need to be copied and pasted. I just tried doing that and it works. Hope everyone can access it: if not, let me know and I’ll try paraphrasing the article!

PPS forgot this till just now: you might need to go into Folder Options on the Tools menu to tick the “show hidden files” option – that’s why I couldn’t find mine!

• 8 Dec, 2011
• 2 likes

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