Samsung is investigating after an IT consultant reported in Network World that he had found installed in two different brand new Samsung R series laptops he bought a keylogging program that could be used by someone remotely to capture his every keystroke. In response, a Samsung spokesman said, “We take these claims very, very seriously.”

UPDATE: >Threatpost reports that Samsung says there’s no keylogger, the results were a false positive when an antivirus program mistakenly identified Microsoft’s Live Application multi-language support folder, “SL” folder, as StarLogger.

It’s very curious as to how the software got onto two different brand new laptops. That would indicate that an entity with access to the laptop at some point in the supply chain had put it there before it reached the store.

If your computer has been compromised by a keylogger, everything from your online banking info to your social to your ineffective StarCraft II build orders could be at risk.

On the company website, the software maker says, “Do you want to know what your buddy, colleague or employee is typing? What are they doing on the computer? StarLogger records every keystroke made on your computer on every window, even on password protected boxes. This key logger is completely undetectable and starts up whenever your computer starts up. See everything being typed: emails, messages, documents, web pages, usernames, passwords, and more.”

The spokesman told Network World that this was the first that they had heard of the company, de Willebois Consulting, which made the “StarLogger” software. “We have no understanding of a relationship with this company and we have no prior knowledge of this software being on our laptops.”

Who put this particular keylogger software on the two laptops, and why, and whether more laptops have been affected, remains to be seen.

Samsung investigating report of keylogger on its laptops [Network World]
Samsung installs keylogger on its laptop computers [Network World] (Thanks to Chris!)

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