Keylogger Found in HP Notebook Keyboard Driver By

[Oxygen]

Don't think I'm actually surprised by this one bit.

 

[Malware Person]

at least i don't use hp. i use lenovo.

 

[LASER_oneXM]

..here is an article/how-to about how to detect and remove the keylogger from HP machines (on bleepingcomputer.com):
How to Check Your HP Laptop for the Synaptic Keylogger and Remove It

Last week BleepingComputer covered how some HP laptops have a keylogger, or really a debug trace, in a certain version of the the Synaptic keyboard driver. While the driver's ability to log keystrokes was disabled by default, it is still a serious security risk that should be fixed on all users of HP laptops.

Before we get started explaining how to check your system for this particular driver, it is important to note that the keylogging was not placed in the driver for malicious reasons. It appears that it was instead being used by the driver developers to help them find bugs in the driver while it was being developed. Unfortunately, by mistake this debug trace function was not removed from the driver before it was released for production.

With that said, if you have an HP laptop, you may be wondering if your laptop has the driver installed that contains this debug trace, or keylogging, feature. To see if you have the affected driver, you can go to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers folder and look at the properties of the SynTP.sys driver as shown below.

If the Product version is listed as 19.3.11.37 16Aug16, then you have the driver installed that contains the keylogging/debug trace feature.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

at least i don't use hp. i use lenovo.

Lenovo has also been implicated in doing similar things. I don't believe any of these matters are 'accidents' or 'oversights', all of these firms have a thirst for data, however they can obtain this data. I realized this long ago - about 10 years - when I found Acer harvesting laptop camera photos and sending them home when their screensaver was running. The 'malware' was hidden in the screensaver software. Pathetic, illegal and incredibly unethical. But of course, plausible deniability when it's a 'programming oversight', right?

Always best to flatten your new systems, install Windows fresh.