Thanks to one of my readers, Bob, for reminding me about potential security issues that don’t receive much attention in the financial adviser space.
If you’re using a standard (i.e. not Bluetooth) wireless keyboard in the office, anything you type is not secure. This includes all the Social Security Numbers, account numbers, birthdays, email addresses, etc. for your clients that you type day in and day out.
See this YouTube video featuring Steve Gibson of GRC.com addressing the ease at which wireless keyboards can be compromised.
There is code out there on the Internet that can sniff out the radio signals on the 27MHz band and collect all the data transmitted through it. All one needs to do is identify the 8-bit translation code (what Gibson refers to as the XOR function, which I know as the Exclusive OR back from my digital logic engineering days) to “decrypt” everything that is typed.
Bluetooth is much safer and has encryption that is much more difficult to break.
My disclosure: I have a hardwired USB keyboard, but I do use a wireless mouse.
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