Keylogger: record your PC keystrokes

flat keylogger
flat keylogger

Want to keep an eye on what's happening on your computer when you're not there? You wish record your PC keystrokes ? Why not install a keylogger to know who is typing what on your keyboard?

A keylogger is a program that will retrieve everything you type on the keyboard. In this article, I will show you how to record keystrokes on your computer in Windows and also in Linux.

Use a keylogger on Windows

To record keystrokes in Windows, we will use Phrozen a very powerful software with a calendar, a search function and other cool options ...

Phrozen is a keylogger for Windows. It is a software capable of recording everything that a user types on the keyboard in a completely transparent way. The keylogger will indicate when the words were typed and in which software: browser, instant messaging, word processor, etc.

To access the interface, you will need to activate a secret key combination and enter a password.

Installation

Download the latest version available. Be careful, Chrome and Firefox will not let you download this software like this. It is indeed on a blacklist of supposedly fraudulent programs.

To escape this filter, you will need to do something on your browser.

In chrome, click on the three lines at the top right, click on settings then click on display advanced settings (at the bottom) then uncheck "Activate protection against phishing and malware in Confidentiality".

Finally you can download Phrozen Keylogger. After downloading, don't forget to reset your browser to the default settings.

Use Case

  • Unzip the archive and install the program like any other. If your antivirus starts to bitch, turn it off for a few minutes. Upon launch, you will need to configure a password and a key combination to display the interface. By default the combination is Ctrl + F9.

keylogger-windows

  • The interface will then appear. Of course for now everything is empty. To give it a try, close the interface and launch a text editor or any program. Type whatever you want, do Ctrl + F9 and type your password.
  • You will then have access to open software with the date and name of the active window at the time of keystrokes.
  • Click in what interests you or do Read all to have access to everything that has been typed on the keyboard since installation.
keylogger-windows-use
Phrozen Keylogger Lite interface

How to use a keylogger under GNU / Linux?

Logkeys is a keylogger under GNU / Linux which allows you to record keystrokes. Once installed, it will record whatever is typed on the keyboard. Logkeys are often used for espionage.

Logkeys remains invisible so you can track which sites the user is visiting or what they are doing.

Installation

To download Logkeys, follow this link: https://github.com/kernc/logkeys. I recommend that you download the latest version available. Then launch a terminal as root and type the following commands:

tar zxvf logkeys-*.tar.gz && rm -f logkeys-*.tar.gz && cd logkeys*
./configure
make
make install

Logkeys is a daemon, meaning it runs in the background on your system. To start and stop it, here are the basic commands:

% logkeys --start
% logkeys --kill

Finally, to view the logs and see the keystrokes typed by a user, go to the /var/log/logkeys.log file:

tail -f /var/log/logkeys.log