For National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we’re picking weekly popular topics in IT security and breaking them down for our readers. This week, it’s all about keylogger—what they are, how you get them, and how you can get rid of them.
Keylogging refers to when keystrokes on a computer are recorded unbeknownst to the user. While keylogging can be used for legal activities, like parents monitoring their children’s unsupervised computer time, it can also be used for malicious purposes, like a hacker stealing someone’s credit card information. Keyloggers can be delivered via a malicious attachment in an email or through running malicious files downloaded from the Internet. Your best defense from keylogging is having security solutions like email spam and virus filtering and Web protection active on your computer that can sniff out the malicious files. If your security solution isn’t cloud based, make sure you have automatic updates scheduled. Updates can have security patches that often contain new ant-malware signatures for viruses like keyloggers. Removing keyloggers can be fairly easy. There are many software solutions available that are capable of cleaning an infected system. Most antivirus software also contains options to remove an infection if it is detected after installing. However, the best method is to keep your antivirus software updated to avoid any infection from the start.
For more information on how layered security solutions from AppRiver can protect your organization from viruses like keylogger, please visit our Spam & Virus and Web Protection pages.
