Keyloggers pose increasing danger

Keyloggers are often used in financially motivated crime

Keyloggers pose more risk to business and home PC users than any other method used for committing cyber crimes, according to a report by security vendor Kaspersky Lab.

The company has witnessed more than a 500 per cent increase between January 2003 and July 2006.

The Kaspersky Lab database currently contains records for more than 300 families of keyloggers – and this number does not include keyloggers that are just one component of compound threats, in which the spy component provides additional functionality.

'There has been a steady stream of new keyloggers and new modifications. Kaspersky antivirus database currently contain records for more than 300 families of keyloggers,' said Nikolay Grebennikov, deputy director in Kaspersky's department of innovative technologies.

'This number does not include keyloggers that are part of complex threats. Most modern malicious programs are hybrids which implement many different technologies. Due to this, any category of malicious program may include programs with keylogger functionality.'

Kaspersky Lab says while keyloggers, phishing emails and social engineering techniques are the key online fraud methods used in  online fraud, the first of these is the most difficult to combat.

Keyloggers are very difficult for users to counter, as there’s no way of seeing that they are installed and the only possible way to protect against them is to use an effective security solution, ideally one that includes proactive detection.

'Most financial cybercrime is committed using keyloggers, as these programs are the most comprehensive and reliable tool for tracking electronic information,' said Grebennikov.

'Unfortunately, keyloggers are becoming more sophisticated – they can track websites visited by the user and only log keystrokes entered on the web sites of particular interest to the cybercriminal.'

Many keyloggers now use rootkit technology to prevent detection manually or using an internet security product.

Once a cybercriminal has a user’s confidential data, they can easily transfer money from the user’s personal accounts. Keyloggers can also be used in industrial and political espionage to access proprietary commercial information and classified government data.