Janet a single mother of three boys and two girls works full time at two jobs to support her family. In her house she has four computers and a broadband connection. She simply does not have the time to monitor what her children do on the Internet. She got the computers to help them with their school work because she lacks the time to help them. She tells her fellow employees about it and one makes her aware of the dangers of the Internet telling her about cyberstalkers and pornography sites that the children may encounter. This employee has also offered a solution a software program called a keylogger that will record all the keystroke that the children make. It will also capture all images from their web cams. It will also record all activities done on the computer and generate a report that will be emailed to Janet at preset time frames. Janet feels safer now that she has installed the commercially available keylogger to watch and monitor the activities that her children perform on the Internet.
So keyloggers may serve some good purpose yes. Yet they may also be a threat to the security of many who don’t want or ask for them. David J. Stang, Ph.D. says this about them in his article Internet Intruders:Spyware, Adware, Hijackers and Other Pests. He states,” Of course, the products listed above probably pale in comparison to the intrusion that a key logger can do. Products such as ISpyNow are designed to be small enough to be attached to e-mail. NETObserve Keylogger logs Internet conversation, window activity, application activity, clipboard activity, printing, keystrokes, web site activity, and captures screenshots and via webcam. Such products can be quite stealthy, too: STARR does not show up as an icon, does not appear in the Windows system tray, does not appear in Windows Programs, does not show up in the Windows task list, cannot be uninstalled without a pre-specified password, and does not slow down the operation of the computer it is recording.”(Stang)[1]
At one time only those with programming knowledge wrote and employed these keyloggers but the commercially available software now makes it possible for a novice to employ the same tactics that those who write Trojan horses have. This may further increase the dilemma of Internet and Network security even more so as it may become a temptation for the novice to harvest credit card numbers and other personal information by installing these on victim’s machines.