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I am mildly paranoid about protecting the security of my financial accounts. I often use Tails on a live USB for its light weight and amnesia. However, I also require the use of Chrome to visit some sites that I trust. Tails is unable to accomodate Chrome at this time. I would use Ubuntu on a live USB, but I find it very tedious and slow to install Chrome for every boot.

Would it be more secure to use a Ubuntu virtual machine and virtual keyboard, or do a full install of Ubuntu on a USB 3.0 drive? The former option would be more practical, is it safe enough?

I am green, other suggestions welcome, of course.

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  • If you're really that paranoid you have to go with the USB drive, a virtual machine wouldn't do anything against a compromised host.
    – AndrolGenhald
    Commented Jan 9, 2018 at 17:41
  • Even if the host is Windows 10 and VM is Ubuntu?
    – Chris
    Commented Jan 9, 2018 at 17:44
  • See this for instance.
    – AndrolGenhald
    Commented Jan 9, 2018 at 17:57
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    Possible duplicate of Are virtual keyboards not necessary anymore to protect against keyloggers?
    – Mike Ounsworth
    Commented Jan 9, 2018 at 19:37
  • I'm not sure why the version of Windows in relevant. Either you trust the host OS to be malware-free (in which case, just do your banking directly on the host), or you're assuming the host is compromised, in which case any VM running inside it is theoretically also compromised.
    – Mike Ounsworth
    Commented Jan 9, 2018 at 19:38

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The problem, as stated, seems to boil down to the simple question: do you trust your host OS to be malware-free? If yes, then just use that for your banking. If not, then running a VM inside an infested host will not give you the level of tin-foil-hattery that you're looking for.

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