Project 12: Keylogger Detection Lab

Module: Module 2: OSINT, Social-Engineering Awareness & Traffic Analysis  |  Level: Beginner  | 
Primary tool: Sysinternals Autoruns/Process Explorer (free)  |  Estimated time: 45–75 minutes

Objective: Learn what a keylogger’s persistence and process footprint typically looks like, and how to spot it.

Free lab environment

LetsDefend (free tier) + CyberDefenders (free challenges) — https://letsdefend.io/ and https://cyberdefenders.org/blueteam-ctf-challenges/

Both platforms offer free-tier SOC-analyst simulations with real (sanitized) logs, alerts, and packet captures, so you can practice detection and triage without needing your own production environment.

Lab workflow

1. Access the free lab scenario (a clean Windows VM with Sysinternals Suite installed) and read the provided context before looking at any alert.
2. Using Sysinternals Autoruns/Process Explorer (free), review the available logs/alerts with the specific goal of learning to learn what a keylogger’s persistence and process footprint typically looks like, and how to spot it.
3. For each candidate indicator, write down why it is suspicious in plain English before deciding it’s a true positive — this discipline avoids alert-fatigue-driven guessing.
4. Draft the detection rule or logic (in plain English or pseudocode) that would have caught this automatically in the future.
5. Cross-check your conclusion against the platform’s model answer or scoring, if provided, and note any gap between your reasoning and the expected answer.
6. Write up your finding as a short incident note: what happened, how you knew, what you’d do next.

Evidence & screenshot requirements

Submit the following with your report (see this module’s practical assignment for exact upload details):

• Autoruns output before and after installing a known benign ‘logging’ demo tool for comparison
• the specific persistence entry you identified and how you’d remove it

Expected deliverable

A concise lab-report entry containing: scope/target, exact commands or payloads used, your key
observation, the required screenshots above, and — where applicable — the specific remediation for what
you found. Vague answers (“sanitize input”, “use a firewall”) without naming the exact mechanism will not
receive full credit.

Safety & authorization

Only test the specific free lab target named above, or infrastructure you personally own. Do not target
third-party systems, real user accounts, or production services without explicit written authorization.
Never deploy anything from this project outside an isolated lab environment.