Gaming usage
Key loggers have been prevalent in the online gaming industry, being used to log steal which are then used to hack a user's gaming account online; of particular importance has been World of War craft, which has been the target of numerous key logging viruses. Anti keyloggers are used by many World of War craft and other gaming community members in order to keep their gaming accounts secure.
Financial institutions
Financial institutions have become the target of key loggers, particularly those institutions which do not use advanced security features such as PIN pads or screen keyboards. Anti key loggers are used to run regular scans of any computer on which banking or client information is accessed, protecting passwords, banking information, and credit card numbers from identity thieves.
Personal use
The most common use of an anti key logger is by individuals wishing to protect their privacy while using their computer; uses range from protecting financial information used in online banking, any passwords, personal communication, and virtually any other information which may be typed into your computer. Key loggers are often installed by people you know, and many times have been installed by an ex-partners hoping to spy on their ex-partner's activities (particularly chat).
Types
Signature-based
This type of software has a signature base, which has the list of all the known keyloggers, each time you run 'System Scan' this software looks for the items from its list on your hard disk drive. This type of software is a rather widespread one, but it has its own drawbacks. The biggest drawback of signature-based anti-keyloggers is that, while using them you can only be sure that you are protected only from keyloggers from your signature-base list, thus staying absolutely vulnerable to other keyloggers. Thus a criminal can download one of many famous keyloggers, change it and your anti-keylogger won't recognize it.
Heuristic analysis
This software doesn't use signature bases, it analyzes the methods of work of all the modules in your PC, thus blocking the work of all the keyloggers. As this method gives better keylogging-protection than signature-based keyloggers it has its own drawbacks. One of them is that this type of software blocks non-keyloggers also. The thing is that many of 'non-harmful' software has the modules include, which principles of work are similar to keyloggers. They do not send received information and are absolutely safe for the user. Usually all the non-signature based keyloggers have the option to unblock all the modules, but it can cause difficulties among inexperienced users.
