5 Dangers from Keyloggers – What You Need to Know

Anti-virus is dated. So are hackers. Everybody knows what an anti-virus does – kill and mutate viruses. Everybody knows that hackers steal your personal information. However, did you know that you might be feeding in your personal information to the hackers by what you’re typing in on your keyboards?

Yes, the menace of keyloggers is a real one.

Usually called “spyware” or “malware,” keyloggers are malicious software that record every activity of a user especially the keystrokes on the keyboard. It can be installed without the knowledge or consent of the user, maybe when the user is reading an email or installing a program. Keyloggers can track user activities while the user is surfing websites, communicating with clients, their file activity, or even while instant messaging. All the activities performed on your computer can be easily recorded regardless of any IP address.

It’s a cyber crime

Keyloggers are no less than cyber crime. Although some organizations conduct online observation and use keyloggers as a surveillance tool, these can also be used without the consent of the person which makes it an act of breach of privacy. Generally the organizations use the key loggers to keep a tab on the employees whether or not they are using the organizational network for any profane or private conversation.

Dangers from Keyloggers

Nearly every data that you have online can be stolen. Your login passwords for the debit cards, credit cards and other bank details can be easily be tracked with these keyloggers. The privacy of a user is definitely at risk if a keylogger is installed on his machine. The creator of the keylogger can track, trap, and collect all user data present in the computer whenever they want. The keyloggers are software programs that can hide themselves and thus it becomes very difficult to find or remove them from a computer.

The dangers of these keyloggers are as follows:

• Keylogger software can easily access user’s e-mail account. Thus information stored in the e-mail accounts is at risk. A user may lose all his professional and personal contacts.
• A keylogger has the ability to create text snapshots of active applications.
• A keylogger has the ability to timestamp record workstation usage and export HTML and text log file from a computer to the creator of the keylogger.
• The creator of the keylogger can extract all your personal information present in your account and sell it to a third party without your consent.
• The most dangerous activity of keyloggers is hacking online banking information and financial details which might lead to major loss of the user.

So, what’s the catch?

The keyloggers are not easy to trace as they don’t show themselves like regular pop up ads or affect the computer speed and performance like spyware. Getting rid of these malicious keyloggers thus becomes a difficult task. Installing an antispyware software can be the best option to keep your computer free from keyloggers.