what is the best keylogger for security uses?

Question

Today we were robbed. A thief come to our home at night and stole some stuff including my brother's laptop.

I think that the right thing to do is to download a keylogger on my PC, just in case...

I want a free keylogger, which has GPS to locate the PC, I know professional thieves will not connect the PC to the internet or sell it before they format it, but not all thieves are professionals... we'll never know... I have to do my homework and secure my PC as much as possible and hope for the best.

I am on Windows XP 32 bit, SP3

Answer 1

There is a handy tool called prey that allows you to track your devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones) and reports back to you. If your device becomes missing you tell prey and it jumps into action. The device begins trying to 'phone home' and will report its IP and geolocation information. In the case of smartphones or laptops with built-in gps it reports that data as well. Laptops report Wifi access points in the vicinity and reports those to calculate the location of the device. When prey is running on a laptop with a built in webcam it even takes pictures of the person using the device. Prey does not come with a keystroke logger however it is open source and one could be built into the code or you could add another key logging solution if you really want to see what is being typed however I would think the location functionality is really more important than seeing what a thief is searching for on your pc.

Answer 2

I'm afraid shopping questions are offtopic for here, however some advice:

• A keylogger is not a locator - what you want to google for is a locator/phone home/remote control/remote wipe application

• The application itself will not have gps - you need a physical gps receiver to do that - but if it can report its IP address that may help, and some can hook into wireless MAC address data (if your PC has a wireless card) to locate themselves that way

• Buy a cable lock - if someone wants the machine they can rip it out, but it is then damaged, so a thief won't be able to sell it as easily

• If you are worried about the confidentiality of your data, use full disk encryption (TrueCrypt or similar) - this won't stop a thief taking your PC but will prevent them accessing it.

Answer 3

While you are trying to stay safe from thieves and all, you must also be aware of the possible network attacks that might happen on your system. So kindly get rid of your windows XP since Microsoft has stopped providing support for it.

Answer 4

The Metasploit Framework, arguably the most-important penetration testing tool the world over, has a few post-exploitation modules that support user-activity monitoring.

The primary one related to keylogging is the keylog_recorder.rb post module, documented on the excellent and highly-regarded Metasploit Unleashed site from Offensive Security (the organization who created Kali Linux as well as the training and labs to go along with Kali).

The Rapid7 website (the people who make Metasploit, including the pay-for commercial versions: Express and Pro) also covers how to automatically run a module after exploitation, and gives specific examples using keylog_recorder.rb

[UPDATE thanks to @void_in commentary]

Cobalt Strike Beacon (commercial but also FOSS portions under Armitage project) contains an excellent keylogger. Search these forums for powersploit or cobalt for more information.

Answer 5

Here is a free keylogger you might be looking for.

Most of the free keyloggers are hard to use and one important thing is that you can't make sure if they contain malware.