HP PC's found to have inbuilt Keylogger that stores all your Keystrokes! Here is how to delete the file...

Today, nearly ten thousands of people and counting are keep talking about this news. HP,
the PC manufacturing Company received serious of attack from those guys. This is because, HP was found to have included an inbuilt keylogger that will automatically collect all your key pressings and is storing on a plain text. The Process that helped to make that job done is none other than the Audio driver (Conexant HD Audio Driver Package with a version 1.0.0.46 or more).

This collects all your keypress and they are stored in  C:\users\public\MicTray.log .

Though HP now, Officially says, that it had released an patch for this, its safe to delete
before the entire patch reaches your PC. This is because when i inspected, those files are stored on plain text, which means, it can accessed by anyone who knows this location  C:\users\public\MicTray.log to breach your Privacy.

What are the affected Models ...?

The following models are found to be affected by this keylogger, but there are more number of models that are infected apart from the following models..

HP EliteBook 820 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 828 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 840 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 848 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 850 G3 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 640 G2 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 650 G2 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 645 G2 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 655 G2 Notebook PC


HP ProBook 450 G3 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 430 G3 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 440 G3 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 446 G3 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 470 G3 Notebook PC
HP ProBook 455 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 725 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 745 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 755 G3 Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 1030 G1 Notebook PC
HP ZBook 15u G3 Mobile Workstation
HP Elite x2 1012 G1 Tablet
HP Elite x2 1012 G1 with Travel Keyboard
HP Elite x2 1012 G1 Advanced Keyboard
HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G3 Notebook PC
HP ZBook 17 G3 Mobile Workstation
HP ZBook 15 G3 Mobile Workstation
HP ZBook Studio G3 Mobile Workstation
HP EliteBook Folio G1 Notebook PC

My PC was not on this list, but it contained those files, so it is worth checking your PC to prevent

damages.

How to check for HP inbuilt keylogger on Windows PC.

1) Open file explorer and simply Copy paste  C:\users\public\MicTray.log on the address bar and

2) Hit enter.

If any file, gets opened in Notepad or your default text editor, then it means, your system too have

that inbuilt keylogger that recordes all your key pressings time after time.

How to delete the  C:\users\public\MicTray.log File..

1) Press Ctrl and Shift and Esc Keys all together

2) You will get taskmanager, on that scroll down and right click on Mic tray icon

3) Select End Task

Now, visit  C:\users\public, Click on the MicTray file and Press Shift + Del Keys together

That's it..

This will completely delete all your keystrokes stored there..

How to disable HP's inbuilt MicTray keylogger

Deleting that file, will delete all your recorded Keystorkes, But a user asked how to prevent it from recording again, i searched Online for help, and a solution, A friend from reddit named

My_Angry_Account_  had shared the steps for these.., Special thanks to him..

The steps we use since long ago, to disable the task manager, registry,etc are altered to be used in this process.

Warning : The following involves registry editing, try at your own risk.
Press Windows (logo) and R Keys of your keyboard

Type regedit and hit enter key.

Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options

Right click on the Image File Execution Options and select New -> Key

Give the name for this key as MicTray.exe

Now, your right click on the newly created key and select new-> String Value

Name the value as debugger

Now, double click or single click on that, it will open a pop up on the value data field

Simply, type devenv /debugexe

Hit enter to save it..

That's it..

Now, your PC have that keylogger disabled.

Enjoy.

Other posts..

This Website will unlock your user account, When you dance!

How to recover from Google Docs attack happened on 03 May 2017

Did you know ? this website will unlock your account When you Dance !

You may heard of two factor authentication, the method of protecting your user account through phone number, (You need to first enter your code or text you received on your phone to successfully enter into your account). There are many other technologies that were under development to help people logging into their account with the help of themselves. Recently, i found a website that introduced this new  authentication method, that will unlock your User account , just the way on how you Dance. !


This technology uses your PC's or smartphone Camera to get its job done.

This method was nick named as Dance Dance Authentication Method by their developers who are nothing but the popular StackOverflow Community.!

So, if you are more curious on how this is done, and how it works, then don't forget to check the below video..

If you wish, take a second and leave what you feel in Commentz...!

How to recover from " Open in Google Docs" Phishing Attack happened on 03 May 2017

Yesterday, Millions of people are attacked by a Phishing email sent from none other than their friends.This mail contained an simple document file requesting you to open on Google Docs, Since, it will look like an invite from your friend, chances are, you clicking that option.But, When you clicked on the option, then it will redirect you to google.com, to request some permissions. When you clicked on the Allow button, then BOOM! your account will be Compromised, and all your data will be at risk.

Because, the application you allowed access was programmed to read all emails,view your contacts,and send emails , delete emails without having your login information..!

          

Though Google claims to have stopped this attack, a report shows, nearly a half of the million people had already clicked on the option "Open in Docs", before google officially stopping the attack.

What if, you (or) Your friend became one of the victims of the above attack ??. Simple, your data will be at risk and may be circulating on the dark web now..

Here is an post that will be helpful in recovering yourself from the Google Docs phishing attack..

Do, this steps, 

1) Visit https://myaccount.google.com/permissions , this will take you to the page that shows list of apps you had gave permissions to operate from your gmail account

2) Now, if you see Google Docs, on that list, then Click on it, and revoke the app from accessing your account.

3) The apps permission will be now revoked, that doesn't mean you are safe now.!

4) You are safe, only when you changed your password, so change that into something strange or harder to guess and if possible enable two step authentication, to protect yourself from this and future attack ( enabling 2 step verification will make google to send a text message to your registered Mobile number, Only after you had entered the received code, you or any one will be allowed to login or access your account,So enable that option, for better security advantage) 

If you hadn't received any mail, then you are safe, but makesure you are not clicking the email from the mail claiming to be from friend to open in Google Docs,  because this malicious emails all may appear to come from your contact, but when you  look close, they were actually from the address“hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh@mailinator.com” with recipients BCCed..

Only you can save yourself , My friend.!

KB4015217 Cumulative update download links are Here [Official]

Windows 10 users got a new  Cumulative update called KB4015217 especially for Anniversary build users  But majority of users are reporting error that they couldn't download the update, and are facing installation issues.

Particularly XPS 13 users are facing the issue with this new cumulative update KB4015217. They said, this update fails to install on their PC even after trying many times through Windows update.

So, i decided to post the direct link to download cumulative update KB4015217, if you are getting the installation error for this update, then simply download and install on your PC from the respective download link.

Offline Download link to download KB4015217

Please note : this download links are from Official Site, so you can download without any worries.

Download update KB4015217 build 14393 (x64) – 950MB

Download Update KB4015217 build 14393 (x86) – 415MB

If you wish to download the update through Microsoft Update Catalog, then you are good to go..



Simply, click on the below link to redirect you to the official download link page.

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4015217

Enjoy.


Updated on April 30,2017.


Other posts you can read..

How to disable Windows updates in Windows 10 Creators Update [Guide]

Windows 10 Creators update will allow you to pause updates only for 7 Days and not 35 days as said earlier

Prevent Windows from installing updates at shutdown in Windows 10 creators update

Upgrade to Windows 10 Creators update failed or installation fails ! [Solution]

Text not appearing on Windows Explorer and Interface after installing Windows 10 Creators update [Fix]

Its been nearly two weeks since the official launch of Windows 10 Creators update. but there is a common bug experienced by many number of users right after installing this Windows 10 Creators update. The bug will make your system to display no text to at all, in the windows explorer. start menu,etc resulting in no text displaying in windows interface after this upgrade or installation of Creators update.

Since, Microsoft said, nearly 10 percent of Windows users are now in Windows 10 Creators update and more number of people are continuing to do so, this bug could cause some serious damage to many users who are yet to receive the update and those who already installed it..

So, in this post i like to share a couple of methods that helped the users to fix the bug.

How to fix no text appearing on explorer, control panel after installing Windows 10 Creators update error [Guide]

Uninstall Comodo Firewall or your Antivirus for some time.

Many fellow users said, uninstalling and reinstalling the Comodo firewall did the job, so if you have comodo firewall then uninstall it and restart and install it again(if you need) to fix the problem or else update your firewall to latest version.

Since the above method would solve the problem in most cases, there are some PC users who don't run any antivirus client or firewalls, if you are one of them, then

1)Press Windows (logo) Key and X Keys together -> Select Powershell(Admin)

2) Type the following command and Hit enter

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth


3) Wait,till it completes and restart your PC

This will fix the problem.

If the above error still persists, then check whether your PC is supported for the Windows 10 Creators update or else roll back to the Previous version until supported version is released.

Hope it is helpful.

Update :

It became an Microsoft known issue, as they had created a separate post, regarding this..
What MS Says...

Icons and/or text throughout the Windows interface may not appear at all, or may appear as solid color blocks on some devices.

This issue may occur if you have an out-of-date version of Comodo Internet Security or Comodo Cloud Antivirus running in Creators Update.  To resolve the issue if you have a Comodo product installed, please update to the latest version of the security software before installing the Creators Update.  You can find information for updating your Comodo product at https://antivirus.comodo.com/windows10update-advisory.php.

 Updated on April 28,2017.