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Keylogging

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

What is Keylogging?

Keylogging, or keystroke logging, refers to the process of capturing and recording users computer keystrokes without their express consent. The most threatening keyloggers allow an attacker to remotely monitor victim’s recorded keystrokes. This is particularly dangerous considering the amount of sensitive information that passes through our keyboards:

Passwords
Credit card numbers
Social security numbers
Private conversations
Trade secrets
Internal business documents

Remote access keyloggers can transmit the recorded information to back to the attacker via email, a file server, or can provide backdoor access to a system so attackers can connect and download directly. As such, keyloggers pose a serious threat to both corporate and personal computer systems.

Keylogging Protection

Remote keylogging threats can be minimized through the manual monitoring of one’s background programs and the use of anti-spyware software. Users concerned about keylogging should be aware of all programs loaded on their system and investigate anything suspicious. Even more helpful in protection from keyloggers would be to have an effective anti-spyware solution running at all times. Since keylogging software depends on its ability to hide from the user, it is designed to be difficult for a user to manually detect.

For comprehensive protection from keyloggers and other types of spyware, it is recommended to have both proactive real-time spyware protection in addition to an on demand spyware scanning utility.

Proactive real-time spyware protection runs in the background continuously monitoring for spyware and other malicious programs. When keylogging software or any other type of malware tries to download itself, real-time protection will detect and block the malicious program from installing.
On demand spyware scanning refers to the ability to run a full spyware scan, detecting any spyware currently on the system that could potentially compromise PC privacy or performance.

Top Anti-Spyware and keylogging protection software that features both real-time protection and on demand scanning includes: McAfee, Norton, and Webroot.