A secure attention key (SAK) or secure attention sequence (SAS) is a special key or
key combination to be pressed on a
computer keyboard before a
login screen which must, to the user, be completely trustworthy. The
operating system kernel, which interacts directly with the hardware, is able to detect whether the secure attention key has been pressed. When this event is detected, the kernel starts the trusted login processing.
The secure attention key is designed to make
login spoofing impossible, as the kernel will suspend any program, including those masquerading as the computer's login process, before starting a trustable login operation.
Examples
Some examples are:
*
for Windows NT.
*
default sequence for
Linux.
Not a true
C2-compliant SAK.
See also
*
Control-Alt-Del
*
Magic SysRq key
The magic SysRq key is a key combination understood by the Linux kernel, which allows the user to perform various low-level commands regardless of the system's state. It is often used to recover from freezes, or to reboot a computer without cor ...
*
Break key
References
Computer security procedures
Computer access control
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