• Welcome to Peterborough Linux User Group (Canada) Forum.
 

HP Laptops keylogger found

Started by ssfc72, December 11, 2017, 06:19:24 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

ssfc72

This BBC article talks about a keylogger that has been found pre-installed on a range of HP series of laptops.
The keylogger is in the driver software for the synapics touchpad.
The article also mentions that another keylogger was found earlier, in the sound driver for HP laptops.

The keylogger is off by default and could only be activated if someone had physical access to the laptop.

I suspect this security issue would only apply to the Windows OS of these computers and would not be an issue if your HP laptop is running a Linux Distro.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42309371

Bill
Mint 20.3 on a Dell 14" Inspiron notebook, HP Pavilion X360, 11" k120ca notebook (Linux Lubuntu), Dell 13" XPS notebook computer (MXLinux)
Cellphone Samsung A50, Koodo pre paid service

fox

Whoa, that's pretty scary. Pre-installed meaning HP put it there? Can't they be sued?
Ubuntu 23.10 on 2019 5k iMac
Ubuntu 22.04 on Dell XPS 13

Jason

Yes, I believe it affects only Windows software as the patches for it are all EXE files. It's possible they could be sued but it probably wasn't deliberate. The code in question was used for debugging purposes (i.e. for developer use) and should have been removed before being preinstalled but somebody forgot. The keylogger was disabled by default as Bill mentioned and could only be enabled with somebody with physical administrative access and a registry patch, though certainly, the right kind of malware could do this. If you have an HP using Windows and HP drivers, you should definitely patch now that it's known how it can be exploited.
* Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Precision 3630 Tower with an
i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
* Motorola Edge (2022) phone with Android 13