Clipboard synchronization - annoyance and security/privacy issue

and111 · 2022-02-18T09:51:14+00:00

There was an error rendering this rich post.

Currently clipboard sync works between the client and the host but also between any other connected client. That leads to a very annoying situation when multiple clients are connected to the same machine X:

machine A (client) <--connected--> machine X <--connected--> machine B (client)

User on machine A copies something to clipboard. User on machine B is at the same also connected to machine X but currently busy with a task on its own machine. The clipboard content of A is immediately in clipboard of machine X and also in clipboard of machine B(!). If user B was working with copy/paste at the same time, its clipboard just got overwritten. It is basically unusable.

It is also a security/privacy related issue as a user could work with copy/paste and have passwords or private content in its clipboard exposed to all machines.

There is a perfect legit and useful use of clipboard sync between 1 client and 1 host. So switching it completely off is not suggested. There may even be scenarios where the clipboard should be synced across all connected clients.

Suggestions:

change default behavior of clipboard sync to: only sync from remote machine clipboard to clients clipboard if client has focus on TeamViewer window of this session
Have an additional checkbox in Options/Advanced/Advanced settings for connections to other computers that, if ticked: enables clipboard sync to the client clipboard, even if window has no focus
Have a warning to clients that local clipboard content is accessible not only from the machine where one is connected but also from other connected clients.

Thanks

and111

Find more posts tagged with

Security

Active

Usability

Status: Active

Comments

jonezy

when will this be looked at by the TV team?

within our organization, we are seeing something even more disturbing than the January post (as of March 18, 2024) ..

clipboard sharing seems to be across machines, even when not logged into said machine..

so for example, i'm logged into TV on SERVER1 .. my colleague logs into TV on SERVER2.

i hit control-v to paste something i copied, and the clipboard my colleague FROM SERVER2 (which i am not even logged into) is pasting onto my local machine.

how is that even possible, and how can TV allow stuff like this to happen?

back in the day, accessing the clipboard was one of the best ways for hackers to gain access to stuff they shouldn't have - this was long since resolved with browsers and javascript domains and blah blah...

but now with TeamViewer, - thye've decided to open up the whole can of worms again.. so now my colleauge is getting my clipboard when i'm not even logged onto the same server as he is... VERY BAD..

JeromeCOR

Hi TV Support,

In our company, we are facing to this extremly annoying issues with copy/paste between all IT team, that could many time cause some real troubles.

We have this problem for months now, and it could be great if you could solve this security issue, or propose a setting fix.

Thanks

JeremyZaretski_Vrstl

What happens when focus is re-established? Do the clipboards synchronize immediately or should it be a manual process? If they synchronize immediately, then which clipboard's contents take priority?

It sounds like you want something sort of like that provided by Apple Remote Desktop, but with the Window focus able to become the determining factor of whether automatic clipboard synchronization is enabled or disabled.

Left button (Toggleable): enable/disable automatic clipboard synchronization. When changing from disabled to enabled, no change is made to either clipboard until the first copy occurs.

Middle button (disabled during automatic clipboard synchronization): overwrite local clipboard with contents of remote clipboard

Right button (disabled during automatic clipboard synchronization): overwrite remote clipboard with contents of local clipboard

doroni

I see the post is from February 2022. Nevertheless, today, January 2024, not only that you are correct, but the situation is worse. Not because it became worse. It was probably worse from the beginning.

This is a very serious issue!

If the other side has "Clipboard History" setting on on their Windows machine, then they accumulate all your clipboard history, and that history stays on their clipboard history also after disconnecting!

They do not even need to do any collection intentionally. It will just pop up the next time they would like to choose something to paste. Long after the session.

I do not know if this happens only when you also have clipboard history setting on, nor if this happens on other OS. But for sure this happens with two Windows machines which have their "Clipboard History" setting on.