Back in the early 2000s when Windows 98 was still a common OS around households I've heard about a password-stealing virus. It worked by replacing the windows logon 98 screen executable with its own fake version, which logged the password, showed the "wrong password" message and launched the real logon binary. The password was sent off to the hackers whenever the computer got online at a later point. The technique was easy because FAT32 that Win 98 used did not have a concept of file permissions, so anyone could read and write anywhere on the file system. I thought it was a pretty clever design, nobody would really blink an eye at getting the password wrong.

Now, it's been over 20 years, and still every time when I get my password wrong, I have a momentary thought of whether it could be a trojan trying to steal my password...

#infosec #storytime