Any computer geeks who can help me with this one?
I recently discovered a nasty piece of software on my PC. It's a keystroke logger. Now, I'm not a computer genius, but by definition, what this little thing does is makes a file of all your typed content and sends it to the party who installed it.
To my knowledge, keystroke loggers don't float around the electronic universe as do adware packets and such. Someone has to physically - either by direct or stealth means - install the software, for the purpose of looking at what you do on your PC.
This software can and does forward all keystroke information including logins and such.
So much for banking security.
So much for private email.
...and what about Identity Theft?
I'm troubled.
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- Turtle Guy
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- English student, Pottery enthusiast, Yoga novice and lover of all people. I make friends over a warm handshake and a beverage. I discover, every day, someone willing to help me along my path.
7 comments:
I don't know much, but do you have a firewall to help prevent this sort of thing?
Wow this is scary! Unfortunately I'm not too familiar with this kind of thing, hope you can get rid of it soon.
Ok, first, do you share your computer with anyone? Typically, you are correct, that someone has to put that type of software on a computer.
I know this, because I have it on mine. It's a program called "Spector Software", (to make a long story short, my husband used to be addicted to chatrooms, this is a way, both he and I feel comfortable knowing he will never "relapse" into this addiction-- because I can see everything he types, ect.)
With that being said, I know how to get into this program on my computer. How did you happen to find this type of thing on your computer? Was it by accident, virus scan, ect?
I've never heard of someone just randomly being able to upload it to someone's computer, but in this day and age, nothing is impossible. Please keep us posted on this-- because I had my idenity stolen last month by a man in Africa, so do be careful! If there's anything I do to help, or if you've got any questions, e-mail me or drop by my blog. Best wishes! :0)
Honestly am Completely useless in this Area!
You need to first learn more about the type of keylogger it is before you can address the issue. miss 1999 poses some good questions to help get to the bottom of this problem. How did you find the logger? What is it called? Are you sure it is a key logger?
Basically there are two "types" of keyloggers. The first is a full application like miss 1999's Spector Software. These applications are manually and deliberately installed to track what is being done on the PC. They usually provide reports and statistics to the person that installed it. Often they also send screen captures, log of applications opened, websites visited, etc.
The other class of keyloggers are not nearly as robust as they are delivered by trojans, worms, etc. These are small applications that record your keystrokes and maybe the websites you go to. It usually sends the data to a remote site using different internet technologies like IRC (chat), a web site, email, or even FTP (file transfer).
A good, up-to-date anti-virus & anti-spyware program will often catch this class of keyloggers. Firewalls can help if it is set up to block the port that a particular keylogger uses. Beyond everything else that you can do, keeping your operating system and applications up to date with the latest patches will be the BEST thing you can do!
I hope this helps. Oshee asked me to give my 2 cents. (You can reach me if you have more questions at bigmur at gmail.) You can also learn more at Wikipedia.
Good luck!
-= M =-
When my computer last went in for a check up the geek that did the work suggested and then installed Trend micro PC-cillin. He also installed Spyware Nuker XT. These are the two security programs they use at their place. The PC-cillin updates its self all the time and the Nuker runs once a week to check for bugs and such. These two programs are the best and simplest of all I've had.
I don't know how to tell you to get rid of your problem now, but once you do, you might want to look into these programs.
I have something that can read what I'm reading and annoy me with popups related to it.
I'm sure it's a hijacker of some sort or another and I should do something about it.
For now, it's more aggravating than anything. I've used ad-aware to get rid of it but it comes right back.
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