Steps to make a keylogger - Software

My last two posts were on What is a Keylogger and The types of Keylogger. As I got suggestions to make a keylogger, I am working on it and will surely post the article for that. This tutorial shows you the steps you need to follow to make a keylogger. But it will not provide you a complete ready made keylogger (because I haven't made a good one till now). So, if you are here to get the source code of keylogger, it is not the right place.

Now lets start with the steps to make a keylogger. Keylogger is generally a software (for this part of article). So, we need to code keylogger following the same steps which we would follow to make a software.

Steps :

1. The very first step is knowing what the software functions when it gets installed on the system. A keylogger generally follows three functions : Detecting a keystroke, Triggering a function on keystroke, saving the data-key to a log file, transfer the data to server when the pc gets connection to internet.
2. Detecting a keystroke is essential. We have to create a function which executes on detecting a keystroke. The input parameter to the function will be 'the key pressed' and the function returns 'data' (what to write to the log file). Suppose, we press any alphanumerical key, then the function should return that alphanumeric character. But if we press any special or whitespace character key, the function should return to the value of special character key. For ex : if we press ENTER, the function should return a newline character (for C language its \n), and not the word 'ENTER'.
3. Now that we have data (values returned by the function), we can save them to a log file (generally txt file).
4. Now, sending the data depends on the type of keylogger you are using (Refer here to know the types of keyloggers). Suppose, you are creating an email keylogger, then you should configure POP3 protocol (Refer here to know about POP3) in your keylogger.
5. Last step is most important. Following the above steps, make you keylogger and test it. If it runs correctly, then move on to next step.
6. The important step is to make your keylogger hidden i.e. when you open task manager, the list of processes should not show you keylogger program process. That is you have to make it run in stealth mode.

The above were the general steps one should follow to make a keylogger. But as you see that all the steps are dependant  on coding and thus programming is most essential. One must know at-least one programming language to make a keylogger. Some of the most important languages are :

• .net
• C++
• C#
• Python
• Android

Android is useful only if you want to make an android keylogger. Now-a-days people are using 3rd party apps for their android keyboard. One example is that of swiftkey. So, we can edit the code of the apk to make the task easier. We just need to find the code which manages keystrokes and then insert our code (which saves and transfer logs to server). A swiftkey logger will be posted in next article as I was able to create one.