keyloggers ??

hi,

what are keyloggers ? what it does to our privacy? how to protect ourselves from keylogger. is it a dangerous threat ?

tnx

 

From what I understand, they are programs that monitor and remember every key you push on your keyboard. They are a very bad threat. I would also recommend snoop free privacy shield to protect against them. Hope this helps

 

As the name implies, it is software logs, or records, keystokes that you make at your PC, keeping a running tally of what you have typed.

If you have one on your machine, you potentially have no privacy. If you, for example, log into a secure site (banking, webmail, credit card issuer, and so on), your login username and password will be recorded. Note, there are commercial keylogging products sold, mainly used to monitor usage on PC's owned by someone and used by others (workers, children, etc.) - there are some circumstances in which the privacy right is not absolute, unfortunately these products are indiscriminate in what is logged.

Most of the major AV's will flag the downloading and/or installation of a noncommercial keylogger. Commercial keyloggers will often be flagged as riskware, so it can be dependent on program settings. So-called proactive defensive measures (registry/autostart protection, etc.) will usually flag the installation of a keylogger, but once installed, will often ignore the presence of a logger. There are also specific antikeylogging products available.

Obviously it can be.

Blue

 

I wouldn't rely on any AV to detect all keyloggers, even if I was running KAV. You really need more than an AV to find them all.

Benton4's recommendation to run Snoopfree is good, though some people can have problems with it and it's only for Windows XP. But it is free, so worth a try IMO. I've not had any problems with it. http://www.snoopfree.com

The combination of Security Task Manager http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/ and Unhackme http://greatis.com/unhackme/ will catch a very large amount of keyloggers. Together they will find nearly every kernel and hook based keylogger around. STM has a 30 day free trial. Unhackme does have a version that you can run for free or get the payware version to remove the pop up.

Or just get Spycop http://www.spycop.com/ for a good all in one anti-keylogger that will find both kernel and hook based loggers. But it will cost you $50.

It's cheaper to purchase the combination of STM and Unhackme (@ $29-STM/ $15.-Unhackme), and STM and Unhackme together will find a huge amount of other malware as well, including rootkits, trojans and spyware etc. that Spycop could never find.

So I find the combination of STM and Unhackme to be the best purchase for the detection of the keyloggers and as a plus, both programs will check for keyloggers (and other malware) very fast, usually just seconds, where a scan with Spycop can take some time. Good luck.

 

While I do agree with this sentiment, it also goes beyond keyloggers as a specific genre of malware. What I do try to guard against is unduly overloading a user, novice or experienced, with an overabundance of overlapping, concurrently active, security applications.

The critical issue with keyloggers, as with most malware, is to isolate and deal with them at download and/or install time. The products mentioned are very useful for after the fact treatment if initial security measures were insufficient or if the PC has been compromised by someone having unrestricted physical access to the machine. I'm implicitly assuming this is not a concern, and that should have been an explicit qualifier.

My own approach is to use a total of 3-4 well chosen security applications, and if chosen well and the qualifiers above are not germane, infestation by keyloggers should not be an issue. If physical security of the machine is in question, I do tend to view the whole question as moot anyway.

Blue

 

mr.helpful,

I currently have Snoopfree, and UnHackMe. I also have a lot of security programs. I have downloaded but not installed STM. I am always concerned that a new program will cause some conflicts, and I am not very computer savy.

Have you experienced, or are you aware of, problems with STM?

Thanks,
Jerry

 

hi all,

thanks for your replies. from all ur suggestions i understand they are just dangerous.

am i at risk if i download any free software from internet? can there be keyloggers hidden inside popups or others? u suggest me not to download any free software ? i us my pc at home only.

tnx

 

If you cannot confirm the source of the program is from a reputable source/site, then yes, you are at risk.

Keep in mind, before computer code can do anything, it has to be executed. For a keylogger to log, it has to be installed and for the logs to be of use to anyone, they should be able to leave you PC. A lot has to occur for the malware functionality to be achieved. There are many measures one could take to stop the sequence of steps in their tracks. Ultimately, however, if you do not know how to recognize these things manually, you need an application to provide that recognition for you at some point in the progression.

I download plenty of programs from the net. None are programs which I know I should pay for, but are magically free at some random site. None are programs that have other signs of being cracked versions of a commercial program. All are from sites that I either explicitly trust through experience or from the comments of others. I also have plenty of tools to evaluate a downloaded program, and my system can always boot to an alternate partition and I can typically deal with nasty objects from there if needed.

Blue

 

I have never found any conflict when using STM and any other programs. But I do not use STM's realtime protection (aka SpyProtector), I only do manual checks with it occasionally. So I can't say for certain if a conflict would occur with the other programs you run (e.g. Snoopfree), but I don't think I would run its realtime protection along with Snoopfree. I would probably choose one or the other.

Running Snoopfree and Unhackme would also give a good line of defense against keyloggers because Snoopfree detects hook based keyloggers and Unhackme will detect the harder to find kernel based ones. So you may already have enough protection against keyloggers right now, without running STM.

I really only use STM for a second opinion if another scanner detects something and for occasional manual checks myself, but I do find it a useful addition to my security line up.

 

mr.helpful,
Thanks.
I may try to use STM as a second opinion. However, it seems as if the combination of UnHackMe and Snoopfree are good enough.

Jerry