Update: Claims that Samsung had installed a commercial keylogger on Samsung laptops have turned out to be false. According to Samsung, the files were associated with the Slovenian version of the Windows Live language pack and the detection was a false positive from VIPRE Antivirus. Samsung did not address why a support supervisor admitted Samsung installed StarLogger for 'monitoring purposes' nor why three separate PR branches failed to respond to the Network World inquiries prior to the breaking article's publication, though reportedly given a week to do so.
Original post:
A Sony rootkit redux, but worse. Security pro and professor M.E. Kabay reports that "Samsung installs keylogger on its laptop computers". Kabay's report is based on Mohamed Hassan's (MSIA, CISSP, CISA and founder of NetSec Consulting Corp) discovery of a Samsung installed keylogger on not one but two new Samsung laptops he purchased from different stores. Both laptops contained the hidden StarLogger keystroke logger, commercial monitoring software that Softpedia describes as:
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. StarLogger can email its results at specified intervals to any email address undetected so you don't even have to be at the computer your are monitoring to get the information. The screen capture images can also be attached automatically to the emails as well as automatically deleted.
While Samsung's public relation teams have remained silent on the subject, a Samsung support supervisor confirmed that Samsung knowingly / deliberately installed the keylogger.
Worrying about traditional criminals infecting our computers is bad enough. Discovering that a computer manufacturer is deliberately doing it is even worse.
Really it just boggles the mind.
So the first thing to do after purchasing a Samsung laptop or any PC with preinstalled software would be to format the HDD and reinstall the OS.
Since there is no law against a company doing this my only solution is to not buy a Samsung product. Hoping many more are with me on this. Enough of us and they won’t be producing anything to put the spyware into.
I have a Samsung R580 bought in Australia and cannot find the StarLogger app anywhere on the machine.
Weird….
My #Samsung R Laptop, also bought early Feb, does NOT have a starlogger keylogger http://bit.ly/i3vTZy
Samsungs do not come with install disks you have to back it up to its own hard drive to do a restore and samsung will not provide you with a reinstall disc you have to send it back to them or bring to a certified samsung repair shop . Absolutely the worst customer service.
The real question is:
Who was it preset to Email?? I mean, it would need to go somewhere, right??
Samsung is following big brother.. Big brother is everywhere now a days….