What are keyloggers?

Keyloggers are small programs that are installed in computer to record users activity. These keyloggers are used by many organisations to know how their employees are using internet, whether he/she is doing unrelated things to work in the office. Parents use keyloggers to track their children’s activity on the computer. Writers want to record their keystrokes, so they use keyloggers.

These keyloggers can be misused to break into other computers, hack passwords, track users activity on internet like, knowing the keywords typed in search engines, which sites the user have visited, what user is doing on the internet.. There are two types of keyloggers, one Software Keyloggers and the other Hardware Keyloggers.

Software Keyloggers:

Software keyloggers are installed in the stealth mode to record the activity of the computer. These keyloggers are difficult to detect normally. They record the keystrokes by the user, takes the snapshots of the computer activity and these are send to the remote user through e-mail. There are many options to compose these keyloggers into .mp3 files, image files, pdf files and into many more formats. Once you click on any file having keyloggers they simply get activated without user knowledge. The main source for software keyloggers to make entry into our computer is internet. The most popular software keyloggers are Elite Keylogger, Ardamax Keylogger.

Hardware Keyloggers:

Hardware keyloggers are arranged in between keyboard and computer i.e., through the data stream. These are fixed to the keyboard port of the computer. These keyloggers have a micro controller and a non-volatile flash memory. The keystrokes of the user are saved into flash memory. To access these keystrokes, open wordpad, type password.If you type correct password wordpad itself shows options of the keylogger, i.e., Saved Keystrokes, change password, settings etc... These Keyloggers are physical. so, using these keyloggers it is very difficult to intrude the computer remotely.

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