PrivacyKeyboard Review

I had pretty high expectations for this software. After doing a little background research I found that PrivacyKeyboard™ (www.anti-keylogger.com) © 1999-2006, Raytown Corporation LLC (www.softsecurity.com)is a part of Information Security Center Ltd. (www.bezpeka.com) (a Ukrainian security software developer with a pretty impressive track record, and a Microsoft Certified Partner to boot.) But that's about where my high expectation ended.

I prepared a small obstacle course for PrivacyKeyboard™ consisting of (2) Commercial key-loggers (Active Key Logger & Perfect Keylogger), (2) compiled from source key-loggers, encrypted and packed with a screen-saver, (1) commercial back-door (Remote-Anything Slave) and (1) compiled from source, previously undetected Trojan.

Downloaded, un-packed, instructions were read, and the installation file run, quick install, no options to speak of.

During install the following file is deposited into the windows file system:
\??\C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\krnl_akl.sys (legitimate system file from ISC Ltd.)

During install the following registry entries are added:
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services]krnl_akl
Value: ImagePath
New data (Unicode null-terminated string (with environment variable references))

Once installed I turned off my A/V protection and ran the first two tests (commercial key-loggers) It detected both Active & Perfect Key loggers without a problem, not allowing any keystrokes to be logged. Next I tried the two 'home-brew' key-loggers, the first was detected (packed with UPX), the second was completely under the radar (ASPack), I was receiving emails with keystrokes within moments of infection. Though it didn't capture any characters typed into the "Virtual keyboard" but how tedious is that?

On to the second test, the back-doors. Remote Anywhere was shot down upon running it, no connections were made. The 'home-brew' Trojan passed without a problem, allowing me to see/capture full video from my screen, effectively ending the "virtual keyboards" usefulness.

When I contacted customer service, after a long wait, they pretty much told me that "I shouldn't be running malware on my system" because "You risk inadvertently infecting yourself."

I ran the software for about 72hrs, nag screens everywhere, I could barely use Photoshop with the copy/paste malfunctioning. When un-installing it gave me an odd error, but still claimed it was un-installed fully.