HP has a very bad history of "accidentally" keyloggers being installed on its customers' laptops.
At least twice this year, HP laptops were found to have pre-installed keylogger or spyware applications.
First came one tweet by security researcher ZwClose who allegedly found built-in keyloggers on several HP laptops.
Later he published his findings.
Ο ερευνητής ασφάλειας ZwClose ανακάλυψε ένα keylogger σε διάφορους φορητούς υπολογιστές της Hewlett-Packard (HP), οι οποίοι θα μπορούσαν να επιτρέψουν στους χάκερς να καταγράφουν κάθε κτύπημα των πλήκτρων σας και να κλέβουν ευαίσθητα δεδομένα, όπως κωδικούς πρόσβασης, information account and credit card information.
Keylogger was found embedded in the SynTP.sys file, a part of the driver touchpad of Synaptics that comes with HP notebook computers, leaving more than 460 HP Notebook models vulnerable to hackers.
Although the keylogger is disabled by default, malicious users could use available open source tools to bypass User Account Control (UAC) to enable the built-in keylogger "by setting a price register.”
The location of the key:
- HKLM \ Software \ Synaptics \% ProductName%
- HKLM \ Software \ Synaptics \% ProductName% \ Default
The researcher reported the keylogger to HP last month and the company acknowledged his presence, saying it was in fact a "debug trace" that was accidentally released but has now been removed.
"A potential security vulnerability has been identified with some Synaptics touchpad driver versions that affect all Synaptics OEM partners", Says HP in Advisory which he issued, calling the keylogger as a possible local loss of confidentiality.
"The party would need administrator rights to exploit the vulnerability. "Neither Synaptics nor HP have access to our customer data on this issue."
The company has released an updated version of drivers for all affected HP Notebook models. So if you are using an HP laptop, better install the updates available for your model. The list of affected HP models is available at HP support page.
As mentioned before, it is not the first time Found on HP laptops. In May of this year, a keylogger was found embedded in one program HP's audio driver that could record all user keystrokes and store them in a human-readable file.
