Well this case has taken a while but the FTC won in the end and reached a settlement two years after halting the company from selling it’s “100 per cent undetectable” commercial keylogging application.

It’s interesting to see court cases that venture into the grey area of ethics, I think the main problem stemmed from the information CyberSpy provided along with it’s software. They gave instructions on how to covertly send the application via e-mail and disguise it as an image attachment or an innocuous piece of software.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with Florida spyware vendor CyberSpy Software, two years after suing the company for selling “100 percent undetectable” keylogging software.

Under the terms of the settlement, announced Wednesday, CyberSpy can keep selling its RemoteSpy spyware but must take new steps to prevent it from being misused or advertised as a tool for spying on someone else’s computer.

To prevent its program from being used illegally, CyberSpy must make changes to it to prevent surreptitious installation, and “encrypt data transmitted over the Internet, police their affiliates to ensure they comply with the order, and remove legacy versions of the software from computers,” the FTC said in a statement.

The FTC sued CyberSpy in November 2008 in an effort to get it to change its business practices.

The final verdict is CyberSpy can continue selling it’s software as that itself is illegal, but they must take precautions to prevent it from being misused or abused and they can no longer advertise it as a tool for spying on others.

This is why ethical cases are a little odd, they can continue selling the exact same software with the same functions – they just have to market it differently and not give people instructions which enable them to spy on others.

Not like people can’t find the same info elsewhere.

CyberSpy used to advertise its product as a tool that let users “secretly and covertly monitor and record PC’s without the need of physical access.”

Today, it’s billed as a tool that lets users spy on their own PCs — in order to keep tabs on children or employees.

The company previously had provided detailed instructions on how to attach a RemoteSpy executable file to an e-mail message, disguised as a photo or legitimate file attachment, the FTC said.

Today, CyberSpy simply advises users to do a Google search on compressing executable attachments, if they want to send RemoteSpy to their own computer and keep it from being blocked by e-mail filters.

CyberSpy have shifted their marketing slightly and now promote the tool as something to spy on your own computers (on your kids/employees etc.) – which is still highly questionable, but not illegal.

They also now include a disclaimer on the RemoteSpy page which states:

Notice: Installing computer monitoring tools on computers you do not own or do not have permission to monitor may violate local, state or federal law.

Source: Network World

KGB Keylogger from Refog Software is a decent light weight Key Logger.

KGB Keylogger is a multi-functional keyboard tracking software that is widely used by both regular users and IT security specialists for tracking the key strokes typed on a given machine.

KGB Keylogger Features at a Glance

• Stealth mode and visible mode of work;
• Logs keyboard input, including language-specific characters;
• Logs Clipboard entries;
• Monitors and logs network activities;
• Custom list of monitored applications;
• Detailed information for each log entry, including the time stamp, application name and window caption;
• Screenshots at custom frequency (regular intervals or on mouse clicks);
• Export of logs into HTML;

The software works as described and is pretty fully featured for a Keylogger including a screen capture feature, not just the normal text/keyboard capturing facility.

The interface is nice and it’s fairly easy to use.

It has good ratings at places like Softpedia (5/5).

You can download the trial version here (Valid for 7 days):

KGB Keylogger – Trial

KGB Keylogger is priced reasonably at the current discount rate of $29USD (Previously $45USD), you can read more here or buy it now here.

You can purchase it securely online with a PayPal, Credit Card, Bank/Wire Transfer, Phone, Fax, Mail/Check and Corporate Purchase orders.

It seems like script kiddies have been taking full advantage of the bug we talked about in the Symantec software. Do companies never learn?

Script kiddies have been taking advantage of intrusion prevention features of Symantec’s Norton Firewall and Norton Internet Security Suites to knock users offline in IRC channels, according to an amusing post at Washingtonpost.com. From the article: ‘Turns out that if someone types “startkeylogger” or “stopkeylogger” in an IRC channel, anyone on the channel using the affected Norton products will be immediately kicked off without warning.

These are commands typically issued by the Spybot worm, which spreads over IRC and peer-to-peer file-swapping networks, installing a program that records and transmits everything the victim types (known as a keylogger).’ Makes you wonder what other magic keywords produce unexpected results with Symantec’s software.

Reminds me somewhat of the whole ++ATH0 thing.

startkeylogger
phonex has quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
TomA has quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
something3280 has quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer

It’s kind of ironic, using the software that’s supposed to be protecting someone..to disrupt their Internet experience ;)

Now if only the script kiddies could put their group brain together and come up with something useful.