My company recently discovered a hardware keylogger installed during an routine

Question

My company recently discovered a hardware keylogger installed during an routine maintenance procedure.

We tried catching the culprit but unfortunately it doesn't seem like we are going to be able to, so the culprit is still at large.

We're looking into ways to prevent this problem in the future. I did some research and it seems like some endpoints security software advertises the ability to detect keyloggers. Does anybody have any insight into how reliable this? ( the program I saw was called "device lock")

Another solution I have in mind is perhaps we could monitor for if the keyboard ever gets disconnected. However, would it be possible to continue monitoring the keyboards when the computer is turned off?

Please let me know of any thoughts you guys might have in dealing with this problem. Outside of gluing the keyboard into the port or physically securing the premise (unfortunately impossible), I'm quite stumped!

Explanation / Answer

In general, it's not possible to detect with 100% certainty if you are being monitored. Any detection tool can only detect things it knows how to look for.

As silly as this sounds, a camera focused on the keyboard and your screen would be undetectable if you didn't know it was there. It could record you typing all of your passwords without ever touching your hardware. If you're really worried about that, I suppose you could drape a cloth over your hands, kind of like NFL coaches covering their mouths when they speak into their mics to prevent lip-reading spies from revealing their play calls to the opposing team. Some websites, to circumvent key-loggers, add additional security by forcing you to use your mouse with a virtual keyboard to enter passwords. (Though this alone wouldn't defeat a camera.) I have seen a password entry system that defeats both key loggers and cameras/shoulder-surfers by having you use the mouse to click codes that change with every attempt, and the codes are only easy to figure out if you know the password. Of course password plus one-time keys also work well for this.

All that being said, perhaps the best defense against hardware keyboard loggers is a camera security system. You might get lucky enough to catch the person who installed the logger. If they wear a disguise, at least you'll know that someone tampered with the system and you can take corrective action.

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