Method and system for prevention of windowless screen capture
A method for preventing the acquisition of data by a screen capturing malware, comprises preventing an unidentified process that does not open a window from performing screen capture.
1. A method for preventing the acquisition of data by a malware through the use of a screen capture approach, comprising:
detecting, on a computer, a process;
monitoring, on the computer, the process to detect when the process attempts to open a window; and
when the process attempts to perform a screen capture,
determining, on the computer, that the process is an unidentified process,
determining, on the computer, that the process has not attempted to open a window, and
preventing the unidentified process from performing the screen capture if the unidentified process has not attempted to open a window.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein determining that the process is an unidentified process comprises determining when the process is not in a white list.
3. A computer program product for preventing a malware from acquiring data by performing a screen capture, the computer program product comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium; and
computer-readable program code embodied in the computer-readable medium, wherein the computer-readable program code is, when executed by a processor, configured to cause the processor to
detect a process,
monitor the process to detect when the process attempts to open a window, and
when the process attempts to perform a screen capture,
determine that the process is an unidentified process,
determine that the process has not attempted to open a window, and
prevent the unidentified process from performing the screen capture if the unidentified process has not attempted to open a window.
4. A system for preventing the acquisition of data by a malware through the use of a screen capture, the system comprising:
a data storage device housing a white list of processes that attempts to open a window; and
a software agent configured to:
detect, on a computer, a process,
monitor the process to detect when the process attempts to open a window, and
when the process attempts to perform a screen capture,
determine, on the computer, that the process is an unidentified process,
determine, on the computer, that the process has not attempted to open a window,
determine if the process is listed on the white list; and
prevent the unidentified process from performing the screen capture if the unidentified process has not attempted to open a window and is not listed on the white list.
5. The system according to claim 4 , wherein the white list is a dynamic list.
6. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the dynamic list is updated by external input.
7. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the dynamic list is updated according to data generated within the system.