Are you afraid that someone is spying on you and you think that spy software has been installed on your computer? So are you trying to find out if there is a keylogger in your PC but you absolutely don’t know how to find a keylogger? You have come to the right place; in this short guide I’ll give you some tips to help you find a keylogger (if there is one!).
I premise that it will not be very easy to find a keylogger that has been well designed because its service will be well hidden and not very visible but if you pay attention to protecting your PC it will be very difficult for a keylogger to be installed.
Index
- Know if there is a keylogger
- How a KeyLogger Works
- How to find a keylogger
- Finding a keylogger from processes
Know if there is a keylogger
Before going to see the various ways to know if there is a keylogger it is necessary to clarify what we are talking about and how it works.
How a KeyLogger Works
If you’ve already read my article on keyloggers then you already know what it is and how it works. In fact it is a rather simple algorithm to understand and it is enough to translate its name into Italian to understand the mechanism; Keylogger translated into Italian means more or less annotation of keys and that’s exactly what a keylogger does. They are therefore techniques for recording the keys pressed by a person on a keyboard; from the keys pressed it will then be possible to obtain user and password used by the user and also intercept conversations via chat.
the operation of a keylogger can be software (through a well-disguised process that intercepts and records all keys pressed) or hardware (through a particular hidden device that stands between the keyboard and the computer and records the pressed keys). Software keyloggers are often installed via Trojans .
How to find a keylogger
A Keylogger is nothing more than a malware or malicious software literally malicious software and is not always detected by normal antivirus programs; However, there are anti-malware software that can find a keylogger on your computer, so the first thing you need to do to know if there is a keylogger and the most important is to scan your computer with an antimalware program.
In this guide I will list the best free anti-malware programs; you will find many but not all of them are valid; Malwarebytes is a very popular anti malware available in free version (without runtime control) and in paid version both compatible with all versions of windows. Alternatively you can use and IOBit Malware Fighter which offers real-time protection.
Alternatively, you can use a portable antimalware program that does not require installation but does not offer real-time protection. Among the many free portable programs available I would like to recommend Spybot Search & Destroy ; it is a light but very powerful software that allows you to find and remove most spyware programs; alternatively another excellent free portable program that allows you to find a keylogger is Emsisoft Emergency Kit Portable .
And if for some particular reason you don’t want to use any anti-malware program from your computer then you can run an online scan to find out if there is a keylogger. If you have chosen this solution, I recommend that you use the free F-Secure service . In this case, you will not have to do anything except connect to the F-Secure page and click on the button that says Run now in the center of the page.
A small executable file called F-SecureOnlineScanner.exe will be downloaded to your PC; click the file to start the scan.
A scan with one of the programs or services I listed above will be more than enough to detect most software Keyloggers; but if you want to be even more secure you will have to check all the processes that are running on your computer.
Finding a keylogger from processes
We assume that a Keylogger is nothing more than a process that runs on the computer and tracks interactions with peripherals (usually the keyboard); one might therefore immediately think that to find a keylogger just look at the list of active processes on the computer and find the “impostor”. in reality it is not quite that simple because if the Keylogger is of good quality the name of its process will be “disguised” and it will be difficult to distinguish it from the active background processes of Windows.
In any case, what you have to do is open the list of running processes and to do this just press the Win + R keys simultaneously and in the window that opens write taskmgr .
The window containing all the running processes and services will open; press on the item processes and then press on the button shows the processes of all users and check the processes one by one to search for processes unknown to you. If you find a process you don’t know you can stop it by pressing the end process button but first try to google that process to understand what it is.
So in conclusion, paying attention to computer security will keep you away from malware including keyloggers; however, if you suspect that your computer is being spied on by a keylogger you will have to immediately run a scan with an anti-malware program that will allow you to find a keylogger in the overwhelming majority of cases.
