Keylogger Found In HP Audio Driver

[Guest]

Swiss security researcher ModZero claims that it has discovered an audio driver installed on several HP laptops that contains a feature that secretly records every keystroke entered into the computer.

Keylogger Found In HP Audio Driver : Read more

 

[SinxarKnights]

Not even slightly surprised. Well I take that back, I am surprised nobody caught it sooner. I wonder what prompted ModZero to even look at that or if they just happened to catch it by accident. It is weird that the driver would log every keystroke.

I get it is listening for hotkey presses, but why log it? Seems like a super amateur way to listen for hotkeys. Like they couldn't figure it out so they said, oh well we should just write all the keystrokes to file then check the file for the proper combo of keystrokes because it is more secure than doing it in memory.

Or it could be as simple as they forgot to disable a hard coded debug mode before releasing it.

Genuinely curious how that slipped through as it is a major security issue that affects quite a few devices.

ed: Yeah the evidence supports the hard coded debug mode: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/hp-keylogger-installed

the keylogging code was not supposed to be in laptops sold to the public, noting that it was mistakenly added to the drivers.

 

[leoscott]

My wife has a laptop that has the log file created. However, I tested it and it does not appear to be logging the keys in the log file in C:\Users\Public. I wonder if HP had them fix it with a patch.

 

[derekullo]

My wife has a laptop that has the log file created. However, I tested it and it does not appear to be logging the keys in the log file in C:\Users\Public. I wonder if HP had them fix it with a patch.

That's what HP wants you to believe.

 

[Mr5oh]

Perhaps if Tom's wasn't so busy harassing users to collect email addresses, they would know this is already old news. This has already been patched.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/05/12/090221/hp-issues-fix-for-keylogger-found-on-several-laptop-models

Not that the story isn't still important, but including there is a fix is equally important.

 

[SinxarKnights]

Not that the story isn't still important, but including there is a fix is equally important.

That is true. It says that as well in the one linked in the article but not on tom's itself.

In your link the user "Megane" came to the same conclusion as I did. Debug code left in. Weird stuff because you would think a team would be writing the drivers where they can check over each others code but apparently this is not the case at Conexant.

 

[randomizer]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a debugging feature that someone forgot to turn off.

 

[chicofehr]

Is this for the manufactures driver or the repackaged HP bloatware driver? I always reinstall windows with plain copy and use drivers directly from manufacturers rather then the laptop makers if possible.

 

[joshyboy82]

Is this for the manufactures driver or the repackaged HP bloatware driver? I always reinstall windows with plain copy and use drivers directly from manufacturers rather then the laptop makers if possible.

Umm. Great solution. My HP has a bunch (9 and sliders) of touch controls. I know, from upgrading OS that they don't work without HP's software package. With a laptop being used as such, not a stand in for my desktop, I rarely plug in a mouse. Now, I could just use my touch pad to navigate through OS to control things like Wifi and Volume, but I prefer to just slide my finger across that lit up bar above my keyboard. I'll choose to embrace the bloatware, for it creates convenience.