What is a keylogger, and why do I need one on my Apple MAC computer?
A keylogger is a program that runs on your computer that logs every button that is pressed on your keyboard to a log file on your hard drive. This log file will contain exactly what anyone has typed on your system, including usernames, passwords, emails, chat sessions….you get the idea.
This obviously is a very powerful thing to do. While I am sure that you can instantly think of all the bad things that could come of this, there are sometimes situations that the use of a keylogger on your system can be extremely helpful. Think of this scenario, your notice that your 14 year old daughter is spending a lot of time on Facebook. Normally, you would think nothing of this, but you begin to notice that she is very sneaky about it and instantly logs off any time that you are around. As a parent of four, this would set off some pretty serious alarm bells in my head that she is up to no good.
What do you do? Sure, you could block access to Facebook all together on your computer with internet filtering software. The only problem with this is the fact that your daughter probably has access to Facebook at any number of alternate locations (school, library, friends house). If you ban her in this way, she would continue to use it at a site that is out of your control.
Something you could do, that would be much more effective is the employ the use of something that is called a keystroke logger, or keylogger for short. Keyloggers are normally very stealthy programs. The hide the fact that they are running, and the end user normally has no idea that their keystokes are being logged. A keylogger would allow you record her username and password to Facebook so that you can log into her account and check if she is doing things that she shouldn’t be online. This may not even be required, since you will have a recorded log of every message and email that she is sending. It really is a powerful solution that should not be ignored.
But what if you are a MAC user? I have seen lots of software packages that do this on the Windows platform but what about a MAC? Well there is one application in particular, called logKext that does a fabulous job at keystroke logging, and have I mentioned that it is FREE?
Just follow these steps to install logKext on your Mac:
1. Download and install the logKext installation file from macupdate.com
2. run “sudo logKextClient” in a terminal window
3. type in your user password, then type in logKext as the client password
4. type “open” to view the keystroke log file