Separate Anti-Keylogging Protection: Who Needs it Most?

If there still are few unprotected computers left, I haven't seen any.Every emerging threat causes means of defense to appear. Anti-virusesand firewalls were the first. Now most computers have also an anti-spyprogram installed. More and more often experts say that some computersneed autonomous anti-keylogging protection as well.

Or do they? Isn't a separate anti-keylogger on a PC a little too much?Can a user do without it--why so much attention to a particular typeof what is usually called spyware? Well, the threat is extremelyserious, that's why.

Information is not a liquid, but, unfortunately, it tends to leakquite the same way. First something trickles out, then?Wholebusinesses may be washed away in no time; and the damage which dataleak cause to state and government institutions can be terrifying.Data leakage is in a way comparable with a break of a dam, with oneclear-cut distinction that makes all the difference. There is alsoanother factor- information value. A tiny drop of information, iflost, is likely to cause irretrievable damage.

Money losses due to online fraud are only the tip of an iceberg. Theremay be irremediable mischief that can never be repaid. It happens whenconfidential information people have to consign to authorities isstolen. Information having to do with people's health, work,education, families, can be pinched, not out of simple curiosity, ofcourse. Addresses and phone numbers, school and university records,tests results, police records, health records, insurances, taxrecords, voters lists and so long and so forth--all these contain bitsof information that if made public can probably do harm to peoplementioned there.

How simple and cheap it is now to get hold of spy software! Scores ofvarious spy programs are available online, and many of them are free.Just imagine that they are within a mouse click from anyone - and dothank God if it is only some suspicious spouse.

Of course, there are means of defense. Loads of programs are speciallycreated to counteract spy software, and they are also availableonline. Why data stealing is flourishing then? The problem is that the"means of defense" are, as it often happens, half a step behind "meansof offense". Signature bases which all the anti-spy software dependon, are made up using clips of spy programs' codes; if a base doesn'tcontain the "autograph" of some spy program or virus, users arehelpless against it. And what if the spy software is brand-new? Whatif it is tailor-made for one particular computer or network (notyours, if you are lucky enough) to be used only once? What if arespectable program for monitoring is used for spy purposes?

So, even if your PC does have some anti-monitoring or anti-spy software with a signature base, your PC may be being scanned right now anyway.

One useful tip: When reading an article where some term (for example,"spyware") is used often, make sure the author and you mean the same.There is quite a mess in definitions when it comes to types ofsoftware. Not surprisingly for those who still remember Englishlessons at school, every noun ending with "ware" is a mixture ofobjects having something in common--usually used for similar purposes.So it tends to be when "ware" is short for "software". Sometimes it'spretty tricky to define exactly what software it includes.

If software collects information without users' knowledge andtransmits it, such a program is usually automatically labeled"spyware" no matter how valuable this information is. Well, let's usecommon sense. If spyware is a mixture of different software productsbased on different principles, it's unlikely that there can be onesolution that could work against all of them. Absolute protection is apie in the sky.

What kind of spyware is the most dangerous? Not just annoying, likemost adware, but really dangerous? There is particular kind ofsoftware specially created for stealing information. One of the mosteffective ways of stealing information from a PC is capturingkeystrokes. It would not be out of place to know the enemy better.Well, here they are:

Keylogging Programs (keyloggers, key loggers, keystroke loggers, keyrecorders, key trappers, key capture programs, etc.) belong to thegroup of tools that monitor PC activity. A small, fairly simpleprogram (a programmer can write a plain one in a couple of days)captures everything the user is doing - keystrokes, mouse clicks,files opened and closed, sites visited. A little more sophisticatedprograms of this kind also capture text from windows and makescreenshots (record everything displayed on the screen) - so theinformation is captured even if the user doesn't type anything, justopens the views the file.

Software products of this type were initially designed solely forrecording keystroke information including the system keys, to thespecial log file to be analyzed by the person who installed thisprogram. Log files can be sent within the network to the shared place,to the ftp server in the Internet, by e-mail etc. These new softwareproducts have many additional functions - they intercept informationfrom windows, capture mouse clicks, make snapshots of the screen andactive windows, record all received and sent emails, monitor fileactivity, monitor system register, monitor the printer queue,intercept sound from the microphone and video pictures from theweb-camera connected to the computer, etc.

Keyloggers can be included into freeware, shareware, and even intocommercial programs. Trojan programs, viruses and Internet wormspretty often contain keyloggers, too. That is why it is so importantto apply special anti-keylogging protection.

Who needs separate anti-keylogging protection? We can easily deducethe answer:

Everybody whose data are really valuable and who will suffer greatlosses if they are stolen.

Everybody who deals with other people's confidential information.

Everybody whose work requires keeping information in secrecy.

And anybody else, who simply doesn't like the idea of his or herinformation (even if it isn't a top secret) leaking anywhere.

Alexandra Gamanenko currently works at the Raytown Corporation, LLC -- an independent software developing company.visit its website at: http://www.anti-keyloggers.com