System Monitors

What is a system monitor? A system monitor is a program that monitors every keystroke you type while you're using your computer. System monitor can either be a hardware program or a software program intended to spy on your computer activities. System monitoring software is usually referred to as keyloggers.

When a system monitor is installed as a hardware, it usually will be a small battery-sized plug-in that serves as a connector for the keyboard and the computer. These devices are hard to detect because they appear to be a standard keyboard plug making it easy for someone to hide the device without the user knowing about it

Software system monitors are downloaded from the Internet as spyware and run as an executable program monitoring your keystrokes then stored where they can be retrieved at a later time by the intruder watching you.

System monitors - how they work. Once a system monitor is on your system either from downloading spyware or as a hardware device, the system monitor will log every keystroke you type then will send the information over the Internet back to whom ever installed the system monitor on your system.

If the system monitoring program is spyware downloaded from the Internet it will install itself in the same directory where the main program you downloaded keeps its important files called DLL's (Dynamic Linked Libraries) which are used to run the program making it hard to detect which DLL's are needed for the program and which one is the system monitor. When you open the file you downloaded it triggers the system monitor to install at the same time.

Sometimes parents use a system monitor to keep track of their children's activities while they are using the computer making sure their not doing things they shouldn't be. A boss may sometimes install a system monitoring software to monitor the activities of their workers. The question about system monitors or keyloggers is it ethical to invade someone's privacy through their use.

System monitors statistics: During the months of March and April of 2004 Earthink teamed up with Webroot and tested more than 420,000 computers and found that almost one-third of the computers were infected with either a Trojan virus or system monitor software. The following is some of the results posted by Webroot:

• Type of Attack
• Computers infected in March
• Computers infected in April
• Total infected from Jan 1, 2004 - April 30, 2004
• System Monitor
• 35,915
• 60,873
• 245,432

How do you know if your system is infected?
The chances are you may have some type of Adware of Spyware like a system monitor already on your computer if do already use a spyware removal program already. If you are getting pop-up ads whenever you visit a website or your system directs you to an unusual search engine when you get an error on a page, you may then already have some type of Spyware or Adware on your system.

System monitors are a little more difficult to detect, the best way to detect and eliminate system monitors is to run an anti-spyware scan of your files and hard drives. If you would like to check your system for system monitoring software then feel free to try our number one ranked product, Spy Sweeper to make sure your system is safe from system monitoring software.

To see a side-by-side comparisons of all of the top Anti spyware programs. Visit our spyware remover software reviews. To learn more about keyloggers and harmful spyware infections see our keyloggers information page.