Kaspersky Anti-Virus

About On-Screen Keyboard

When using the Internet, you frequently need to enter your personal data or your user name and password. This happens, for example, during account registration on websites, online shopping, and Internet banking.

There is a risk that personal data can be intercepted by hardware keyboard interceptors or keyloggers, which are programs that record keystrokes. The On-Screen Keyboard tool prevents the interception of data entered via the keyboard.

Many programs classified as spyware can take screenshots, which then are automatically transmitted to an intruder for further analysis to steal the user's personal data. On-Screen Keyboard protects entered personal data from attempts to intercept it by means of screenshots.

On-Screen Keyboard has the following features:

• You can click the On-Screen Keyboard buttons with the mouse.
• Unlike hardware keyboards, it is impossible to press several keys simultaneously on On-Screen Keyboard. This is why key combinations (such as ALT+F4) require that you click the first key (for example, ALT), then the second key (for example, F4), and then the first key again. The second click of the key acts in the same way as releasing the key on a hardware keyboard.
• The On-Screen Keyboard language can be switched by using the same shortcut that is specified by the operating system settings for the hardware keyboard. To do so, right-click the other key (for example, if the LEFT ALT+SHIFT shortcut is configured in the operating system settings for switching the keyboard language, left-click the LEFT ALT key and then right-click the SHIFT key).

To ensure protection of data entered via On-Screen Keyboard, restart your computer after installing Kaspersky Anti-Virus.

The use of On-Screen Keyboard has the following limitations:

• On-Screen Keyboard prevents interception of personal data only when used with the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome browsers. When used with other browsers, On-Screen Keyboard does not protect entered personal data against interception.
• On-Screen Keyboard cannot protect your personal data if the website requiring the entry of such data is hacked, because in this case the information is obtained directly by the intruders from the website.
• On-Screen Keyboard does not prevent screenshots that are made by using the Print Screen key and other combinations of keys specified in the operating system settings.

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The preceding list describes the main restrictions in functionality for protection of data input. A full list of restrictions is given in an article on the Kaspersky Technical Support website. This article lists restrictions on Secure Keyboard Input in Kaspersky Internet Security, these restrictions apply also to On-Screen Keyboard in Kaspersky Anti-Virus.