Words of caution

Hello Steemians,

I would like to share with you security related information you might find relevant if you are a HP laptop user.

In response to my last week new HP laptop purchase, a family member of mine just sent yesterday an article which took me both by surprise and caution: different new HP models have been found to be infected by keyloggers.

EliteBook, ProBook, Pavilion and Envy affect among others

If you recently purchased a HP laptop, make sure you check whether yours is impacted.

Keyloggers within preinstalled software drivers

Turns out a security researcher called Michael Myng found keylogging code in different HP laptops. Until now, more than 460 units have been found to be somewhat affected. News are kind of recent, last article I read dates of 9th of October. Do not know about further news.

Loss of confidentiality

The suspicious keylogging sofware was discovered while the security independent researcher was inspecting Synaptics Touchpad software.

Apparently, the keylogging sofware remained deactivated by default, however; an attacker with access to the computer could, in theory, enable it as a means to stealing sensitive information.

In May, a similar keylogger was discovered

This time, audio drivers which were pre-installed on several HP laptops had been compromised.

At that time, the enterprise stated the keylogger code had been "mistakenly installed" to the software.

Personal advice

If your HP model might be under risk, I would make sure to:

• Make new fresh windows install. do NOT use pre-install windows
• Avoid Synaptics drivers (touchpad)

Bonus for the ignorants

"Keystroke logging, often referred to as keylogging or keyboard capturing, is the action of recording (logging) the keys struck on a keyboard, typically covertly, so that the person using the keyboard is unaware that their actions are being monitored. Data can then be retrieved by the person operating the logging program. A keylogger can be either software or hardware." WIkipedia source

source: hackernews
source2: bbc