If you own a HP laptop, it might be spying on you and stealing confidential data. We aren’t bluffing, HP has confirmed that some of their Notebooks, Mobile Thin Clients, & Mobile Workstations have a hidden Keylogger. So, let’s inspect your HP laptop for this vulnerability and remove it.
Keylogger
A keylogger is either a software or hardware tool which records or logs the keystrokes on a keyboard. The logs are accessible to the person operating the keylogger either online or offline. Some companies use Keyloggers to oversee their employee activity. However, it can also steal confidential data including passwords. A software keylogger can get into the system by means of trojans, nowadays keyloggers even use acoustic analysis to track keystrokes.
HP Keylogger Detection
The Keylogger present in HP laptops are software based and detection is easy. It is embedded in the driver software of touchpad by Synaptics, which is part of most HP laptops. HP says that these are disabled by default, but anyone with physical or remote access can switch it on for malicious purpose.
A potential security vulnerability has been identified with certain versions of Synaptics touchpad drivers that impact all Synaptics OEM partners. A party would need administrative privileges in order to take advantage of the vulnerability. Neither Synaptics nor HP has access to customer data as a result of this issue.
- Go your C:\Windows\System32\drivers.
- Search for the file SynTP.sys driver.
- Check the version by going to file property.
- Vulnerability is present in 19.3.11.37 16Aug16 version.
HP Keylogger Removal
HP has provided a resolution for this problem as an update to the touchpad driver. You can confirm the product model and get the corresponding patch from HP’s support page.
- Visit HP support website.
- Search for your product from the impact list.
- Download the softpaq and update the driver.
General Information
Even if we remove the present vulnerability, we can’t ensure that another one crawls into your system. A few months back HP had reported a similar flaw in their audio driver. Some countermeasures to deceive keyloggers are anti-keylogging software, using the on-screen keyboard or automatic form fillers. You can also use password managers and OTP(One Time Passwords) to manage your credentials. Hope the write-up was informative, Peace!