Hardware Keyloggers

A hardware keylogger is a device that connects between your keyboard and the computer. Once installed, the hardware keylogger starts to capture keystrokes as they pass through, to it's own internal memory. An obvious benefit of a hardware keylogger is that it cannot be detected by software or spyware scanners. Another notable benefit, if the computer being monitored is connected to the Internet, the hardware keyloggers ability to store sensitive data in its own internal memory chip keeps the data from being accessible remotely or copied to a disk. Physical access to the keylogger would be required to gain access to the data. Hardware keyloggers can also be broken into 2 sub-categories:

1. Unsecured onboard memory
2. Encrypted (secured) onboard memory

If a hardware keylogger does not encrypt or secure its data then the data is essentially available to anyone who can gain physical access to it. If the hardware keylogger uses strong encryption to secure its data, it then becomes impossible for someone to gain access to its internal memory for the purpose of stealing the data.