Internet security company Kaspersky Laboratories has taken legal
advice on whether to include in its malware library the
keylogger software that Google and Microsoft have added to their
latest browsers.
Eugene Kaspersky, the Moscow-based firm's CEO, said his firm's
anti-malware tools detected
keyloggers
as a matter of course and treated them as malware. But with "legal"
businesses starting to use them, he had sought legal advice.
"We didn't want to be accused of saying these big legitimate
companies are distributing malware," Kaspersky said.
Cybercriminals use keyloggers to record each keystroke a user
makes in order to steal their IDs, passwords, and other valuable
data. According to reports, Google and Microsoft want to use a
keylogger application as a kind of predictive text engine that will
automatically fill in frequently used search terms and internet
destinations.
Both companies also store users' log-ins, searches and other
data to build profiles of their online interests so they can target
advertisements at them.
Kaspersky said he expected users to insist that Google and
Microsoft remove the privacy-invading applications from their
browsers.
"That would save us a lot of work, and we already have plenty to
do," he told Computer Weekly.
He said he would be closely watching developments with respect
to Microsoft and Google's use of keyloggers before finalising
Kaspersky's approach.
The news comes in the same week that the Department of Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform spelled out
a list of conditions under which a British online behaviour
profiling application, Phorm, would run legally.
Last week, former Lehman Brothers vice-chairman Francesco Caio
told the government that serving ads based on profiled interests
could become an important source of revenue to network operators
and internet service providers.
Caio had investigated
barriers to investement in high-speed networks for the
government.