The HP laptop keylogger issue was real and it is now confirmed by the company itself, who acknowledges that there was a keylogger in the Conexant audio driver in the specific models of laptops. It was rather a security flaw because the intention from the company was to learn about the keystroke patterns, and HP also said that these specific units were not to be shipped but they did.
While admitting to this, the company also said that they are sending a fix through the Windows update. This update is released to following 2016 HP PC models – EliteBook, ProBook and Zbook. While you can check for the update and perform it if you have a 2016 model, the owners of the previous year ones will have to wait for more as HP is still working to send an update.
While HP hasn’t accessed or shared the data that was stored in the files, the presence of these could pose a serious security threat and thus, the update that is being sent would not just fix the issue by removing the codes that record the keylogging, but would also delete the files that are stored with the recordings. It is also recommended that if you have taken any backups before the Windows update, you should delete them from your hard drive because they could contain multiple copies of the keystroke data.
Mike Nash, HP Vice President told Axios in a statement that the keystroke logging code was a debugging code that must have been left unintentionally by Conexant, the company that made the audio driver for HP’s PC models, and it “should never have been included on shipping PCs.”
While it is good to hear from the company that they are working on a fix, it is rather unconvincing that such thing happened in the first place and it isn’t one particular model but several over the years and thus, having a word from the company that it was unintentional doesn’t convince us, really.
Check if there is an update available on your HP laptop and as mentioned in our previous article, even if you don’t have one of the mentioned models, it is safe to check if your device has the files.
