KeyGhost is a nasty type of hardware keylogger that if ignored as a concept can truly expose a lot of data, with one downsize - the logged data has to be retrieved physically in the very same fashion the keylogger got installed. Here's how the six-year-olds do it :"A six-year-old girl has successfully hacked into the UK Parliament's computer system, installing a keylogger onto an MPs machine. Guildford MP Anne Milton agreed to leave her computer unattended for 60 seconds as part of a test of House of Commons IT security by the BBC's Inside Out programme. Brianagh, a schoolgirl from Winchester, took just a quarter of that time to install the keylogging software without being noticed. Such easily available applications record all the keystrokes made on a machine and can therefore be used to steal passwords, financial data and personal information."
The article starts by mentioning the software and ends up with a quote on the "device" itself. The story is a great wake up call, especially the six-year-old girl part, as it will position the computer system's security as an extremely weak one in the minds of the masses, no wait the tax payers. But age doesn't really matter here, it's the idea that the majority of insecurities have an outside-towards-inside trend, namely they come from the Internet, not from within as we see in this case. In case you're interested, there're already various business development activities in releasing a laptop based PCI card keylogger given the obvious incompatibilities with a PC.
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