Smart prevention practices are the best way to avoid this age-old threat. How to Detect, Prevent, and Remove Keyloggers If one is hiding on your computer, it’s likely of the digital variety. They can be delivered via browser links, malicious scripts, email attachments, and even disguised as legitimate downloads. Given the ease of delivering them, the difficulty in detecting them, and the potential payoffs from stealing valuable information, digital keyloggers are now far more common than their hardware-enabled forebearers. So that movie pirated from a sketchy streaming site may have more twists than originally anticipated. Often, they ride the coattails of an innocent-looking application to avoid arousing suspicion. Trojan keyloggers are installed on users’ systems under false pretenses. Because they can be transferred to a machine in much the same way as any other type of malware-by prompting a victim to open a web browser, download an attachment, or click a link-one user misstep is enough to get this malicious payload in the door. Phishing attacks are now one of the most common methods of delivering these devices. USB keyloggers, given the obvious difficulty in concealing their presence, are most often used for legitimate purposes, such as a workplace monitoring what information is being relayed to protect trade secrets and other sensitive information. Not unlike an ATM skimmer, these phony keyboards fit snugly onto an actual keyboard and relay keystrokes to a third-party snooper. Keyboard overlays can be difficult to pull off convincingly, but when done well they are difficult to detect. They are often made to look like ordinary computer components to avoid detection, often blending into a tangle of cords hanging behind a desk or workspace. Traditional keyloggers are installed at some point between a keyboard and the device itself. There are a wide variety of more specific types falling under each of the two categories, but here’s a brief look at examples of each. Keyloggers can be broadly divided into two categories: hardware and software-enabled. Keylogger USBs and Viruses: How You Get Infected They begin to cross the line from benign to malign, though, when they’re used without the informed consent of the user. Keyloggers can be legally used as keyboard shortcuts (since this function, by definition, must track keystrokes), to toggle between keyboard languages, and as parental or usage-control measures. They do, however, have legitimate applications as well. Today, they’ve become a common tactic for cybercriminals looking to steal valuable data, access protected accounts, or embark on long-term snooping for espionage purposes. Download the Ultimate Cybersecurity Comparison Kit (1600+ Reviews, 5 Short Reports) More recently, the FBI used its own original keylogger to trace the source of bomb threats made by a Washington state teen. Soviet spies used them to steal information from electric typewriters belonging to the United States during the Cold War, the NSA admitted in a paper declassified in 2012. Interestingly, keyloggers actually predate personal computers as we think of them today. These tools do have their legitimate purposes (more on those later), but they’re most often used for surreptitiously tracking a user’s data entries to steal passwords, banking login numbers, addresses, and other sensitive personal information. Keyloggers are a means, either hardware or software-enabled, of recording every keystroke made on the keyboard.
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