I originally post about this subject back on October 23, 2005. I ran across the old post and I thought it worth bringing up again. I’m sure there are many people online still operating older systems and browsers that may be unaware of this security issue.

There are websites online that can steal the information you have copied into your clipboard. Back when I was first made aware of this issue there were sites using auto surfing programs with the sole intention of collecting unprotected information found on random clipboards. I imagine this is still going on today using various methods of attracting heavy traffic.

We’ve all copied a password, credit card number, or other private information to our clipboard. You can see why thieves would want access to such information. I’m sure it aids in identification theft as well. Malicious website use various scripts to grab the text that’s on your clipboard.

The link below actually has a simple two step test you can take to see if you are at risk from clipboard thieves. If your system fails the test the site gives step by step instructions to adjust your settings making your surfing habits more secure.

My test - I use Firefox/2.0.0.16 and I was impressed to see that the test was unable to grab my clipboard text. Then I tried IE7 and it activated the popup warning you see in the image above. I remember when I first learned about the issue almost three years ago it was able to copy my clipboard without warning.

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