Primarily, keyloggers are used for monitoring activities from a computer or Smartphone. People who usually use this software are parents who want to check on their kids’ computer activities, companies who want to see how their employees deliver their daily tasks, and more.
However, keyloggers are also being used to stalk other computers unethically and illegally. We received concerns from Mac users asking “Do I have a keylogger on Mac?” and wanted to know how to get rid of unwanted software from their Mac systems. Together, let’s find out how to detect keyloggers on Mac and safely remove them from Mac in this post.
Part 1. Do I Have A Keylogger on Mac?
Keyloggers monitor a user’s activity by recording the things that have been typed on the keyboard including your username, password, personal records, bank details, and other highly-sensitive information. How do keyloggers get on your computer? They can either be software installed or hardware that connects to a USB port.
Is keylogger a virus? It is a type of malware for sure. Can a keylogger be detected? You cannot easily detect a keylogger on a Mac computer unless you have some technical background to search through your system or use an alternative program. Keyloggers are installed via Malware infection or via user-installed.
Part 2. How to Manually Check for Keyloggers on Mac via Activity Monitor
Do I have a keylogger on Mac? Another option you can do to verify if there are keyloggers installed on your Mac is to search for it manually. The process may be tedious but then again, it’s better to be safe than suffer the consequences later on.
Is there a keylogger on my device? If you are confident that there are no hardware keyloggers installed on your Mac, then your next step is to check the Activity Monitor. Your Activity Monitor shows real-time activities and occurrences on your Mac. Follow these steps:
- Open the Utilities folder and choose Activity Monitor
- Find or locate any suspicious-looking processes that might be keyloggers
- Note down the name and then launch the Terminal
- Inside the Terminal window, type in man (name of the processes you listed) – where (name of the processes) is the process you wrote down. Remember to type the name removing the brackets
- The Terminal will begin to detect and find the description of the keylogger that was installed.
At this point, you can run a deep scan using your anti-virus software for Mac so it will remove unwanted software and notify you of various suspicious-looking processes.