A German company has come up with a program it claims can protect against the biggest weak spot of most encryption systems -- keyloggers that record passphrases as they are entered.

Encryption is widely seen as a solution to the woes of data security, locking data behind near-unbreakable algorithms. But that assumes the password or phrase used to access the encrypted data is itself secure.

The system works around a virtual keyboard feature, built into the encryption utility TurboCrypt, which can encrypt keyboard characters on-the-fly, before keylogging or screen capture malware has had a chance to record what is being entered.