cherryplankton

Q: Spontaneous change of keyboard layout from US to Austrian

This morning, 4/20/16, I was browsing various websites, doing some research in the Chrome browser.  I was alarmed to note that suddenly, the y and z keys on the keyboard were reversed.  Typing y displayed a letter z and typing z displayed a letter y.  I was able to search and find the solution.  My computer keyboard layout was switched to Austrian.  I noted the Austrian flag in the upper right corner of the screen and switched it back to the US flag and the problem was resolved.

 

My concern is that this happened in an instant, spontaneously.  I have not added additional international keyboard layouts at all.  I also did not do anything to switch the layout to Austrian.  When I looked at keyboard settings, the only keyboards there were US and Austrian.  This is strange because I have no connection to Austria at all.  I happen to have been making screen recordings with ScreenFlow almost every day for the past week so I reviewed the recordings to note when things may have changed.  All the way up to the recording this morning, the US flag is displayed for keyboard settings in the upper right corner.  Prior to 4/15/16, there is no flag displayed.  So, changes were made to my keyboard layout settings on 4/14/16 or 4/15/16.  This is in an account on a computer to which only I have access.

 

To be thorough, I will admit that after I finished this morning's screen recording, I read mention of a particular historical figure's birthdate being 4/20.  This person was born in Austria.  After noting this fact, I did do some searching in incognito mode in Chrome for further information about this historical figure.

 

Is it possible that browsing to a website can change my computer's keyboard settings?  But if so, why the apparent change in keyboard layout settings 5-6 days ago?

 

I am concerned about this being some kind of malware that is installed on my computer.  I have been searching Twitter and Google to see if there are any similar experiences, but I have not found any so far.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Happened while using Chrome browser

Posted on Apr 20, 2016 3:05 PM