New Delhi, Feb 6: Banks like HDFC Bank and Citibank have introduced 'Virtual Keyboard' function in online banking to protect against frauds.

Do you know that it is possible to hack your password by capturing keystrokes on the keypad? Programs such as Spy Ware and Trojan Programs are designed to capture keyboard strokes. And it is often installed in the computer system to capture confidential user data without the user's consent.

To do away with such frauds, some banks have newly introduced the concept of Virtual Keyboard to protect your account or card information and password (IPINs) from getting hacked.

Rajiv Chatterjee, vice-president of ATM, net banking and mobile banking products with HDFC Bank, explains: "Whenever you avail of the net banking facility through shared computers or a cyber café, there is a high possibility of a fraudster hacking your password. This happens through key logger attack. It's a foreign software used for making fraudulent online credit card transactions or steal your IPINs".

Experts say these softwares often get downloaded by the victim's PC through some free downloads or MP3 or even movie downloads. Now, these programs are used for a number of destructive purposes like erase, overwriting or copy data from the infected computer, corruption and encryption of files.

To add to you woes, you cannot remove Spyware or Trojan with the regular anti-virus software. In fact, some of these programs have the ability to partially or fully disable the anti-virus tools.

So, be it your email password or internet banking password , it is exposed to such risks despite all protective measures uploaded on your desktop. Thus, some banks have introduced Virtual Keyboard to protect account or card information and password from the hands of fraudsters.

Virtual Keypad is an online application, which substitutes the actual physical keyboard with a mouse. When you click on the virtual keyboard option at the time of net banking, the monitor flashes a keyboard on your screen. You have to use the mouse to click on the relevant keys to sign into your net banking ID.

Another way of hacking your password could be by placing a hidden camera. In such cases, you can opt for a scrambled virtual keypad. In a scrambled keypad, the position of keys on virtual keypad keeps changing every time you sign in. "This makes it difficult for the camera to capture the exact letters for the password," Mr Chatterjee added.