HP Laptops Have Been Found Harbouring Keyloggers Again!

HP Laptops with hidden keyloggers

HP is certainly one of the major players when it comes to home laptop solutions. With the exception of gaming laptop producers, HP and Dell have the home (and by this, I mean the ‘mom and dad’) market pretty sewn up at the moment.  It turns out, however, that your HP laptop might just have been hiding a nasty surprise.

I know it’s a common feature in generic laptops, but HP products do generally tend to come loaded with a lot of garbage applications.

While most of these are a mild inconvenience, it turns out that HP Laptops might be harbouring more than you thought.

In a report via the BBC, a security researcher, Michael Myng, has found that several hundred different models of HP laptops contain keylogging code included as part of the preinstalled package.

Keyloggers

A keylogger is a fairly self-explanatory piece of malware. Put simply, it records all of your key entries and sends them to a 3rd party. How can this be dangerous? Well, if you type in your e-mail address, it’s logical that what following will be your password. If on a website, bear in mind as well, they will also likely know which one that is.

Michael Myng found this keylogging software on over 460 different models of HP laptops.

HP has acknowledged the fault and as such has listed a full list of laptops affected going back to 2012.

Fortunately, the vulnerability is currently inactive. It is thought, however, that a resourceful hacker could potentially find a way to activate it.

More alarmingly, this isn’t the first time a keylogger has been discovered within HP preinstalled software. In this instance, it is thought to be something to do with the mousepad, in the prior it was the audio drivers.

You might, therefore, want to check your HP laptop against the above list and if you are amongst those affect, you might want to consult the HP website for a security update in the next few days.