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"Keystroke recorders are small utilities that allow
malicious users to obtain information on everything that is typed into a
certain computer.
These programs can enter the targeted systems using 'social engineering'
techniques, as Trojans do, or it can be the hacker themselves that
physically installs the program on the attacked system by taking
advantage of the computer user's carelessness.

Keystroke recorders will remain invisible to the targeted user, so that
everything that they type is stored in a file. When the hacker recovers
this log file, they will have access to all the documents that the user
under attack has written, as well as the login information (user name
and password) of all the systems that they logged into. In short, this
file contains all the keystrokes carried out from the moment the
resident program was installed till it was finally recovered.

This kind of tool was developed a long time ago and has become very
popular. They are available for any operating system and include all
types of features. In some cases, they can be configured to send the log
file to a particular Internet address. This way, the hacker does not
need to physically access the targeted computer in order to recover the
file.

In practice, the best way to know if one of these utilities is present
on the system is by checking the resident program and process list. As a
precautionary measure to avoid these attacks, we recommend that no
program of unknown origin is executed on the system."
It should be noted that some of these types of programs do NOT show up in Add/Remove Programs. There are programs available to check for the presence of key-logging programs on your computer such as http://www.xblock.com/ , http://www.trapware.com/ and http://main.kmcsonline.com/bugaware.htm

Most keyloggers are usually considered trojans. However, if someone actually had physical access to a system and installed a keylogger, then it could be excluded from a scan. Tauscan and The Cleaner recognize popular keyloggers used for malicious purposes and will detect their installation. However, keyloggers are also important security and network tools that assist administrators as well as regular system owners to keep abreast of what is happening on their computers.