Random characters when typing
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hdhondt last edited by
I recently found that Opera sporadically generates random characters when typing. This can happen when typing in the address line, or in any other field.
This started happening at about the same time as an upgrade of ZoneAlarm to the latest version. It seems to have stopped after I disabled ZoneAlarm's anti-keylogging feature. However, as the problem does not always happen, I cannot be certain that it is fixed.
I am running Opera 112.0.5197.53 and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security NextGen 4.3.260.19915 on a PC with Windows 10 Home 19045.4651.
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blackbird71 last edited by@hdhondt Zone Alarm's anti-keylogger has been known in the past to create typing issues with other browsers as well as Opera (eg: Firefox). While it's unclear just what techniques are involved with Zone Alarm's specific anti-keylogging approach (they haven't stated them), if these include industry-typical sandboxing and/or keystroke encryption or randomizing, then all kinds of potential problem areas for mis-timing and process interference can arise when keystroking into a browser.
Arguably, the best approach to avoid unwanted keylogging is to robustly prevent the malware installation in the first place, rather than attempting to combat keylogging after malware arrival.
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hdhondt last edited by
@blackbird71 said in Random characters when typing:
blackbird71
Thanks @blackbird71 you've confirmed my suspicions
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hdhondt last edited by leocg
It just happened again, even though the anti-keylogger is disabled. I tried Chrome and Edge, and both are working fine - as are all other apps; it seems to be unique to Opera. I had to type this in Notepad.
Edit:
But, after restarting Opera it's working fine again. This is weird! -
blackbird71 last edited by blackbird71
@hdhondt It's possible that disabling the anti-keylogger in Zone Alarm may not completely reverse the hooks and interactions inserted into keyboard processing by Zone Alarm. It all depends on just how ZA implements their anti-keylogging feature in the operating system and how (or to what extent) "disabling" it reverts those implementations back to a pre-ZA, pristine, keystroking state... and, lacking any published insight into the details of Zone Alarm's actual anti-keylogging techniques, it's impossible to know whether disabling the anti-keylogging feature completely removes any perturbations to keystroking flow introduced by ZA's installed code (disabled or not).
If the problem keeps recurring for you, you may be faced with either restarting Opera periodically whenever it recurs or else consider removing Zone Alarm entirely. The problem you describe is not normally found with Opera (or other browsers), and the only times I've seen it arise with user systems is when an anti-keylogger is present on the system or when a keyboard is malfunctioning (in which case, the problem also recurs with other software on the system).
