Peer-reviewed research
Keyboard or keylogger? A security analysis of third-party keyboard apps
Junsung Cho et al., 2015 13th Annual Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust (PST), IEEE, 2015 · DOI 10.1109/PST.2015.7232970
Read the originalRead on October 17, 2026
- What it is
- A peer-reviewed conference paper that analyzed the security behaviors of 139 keyboard apps on Google Play. It found that most of them could be misused as keyloggers, and it discusses defenses.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed at an IEEE conference. It measures what the apps are able to do, not what they send. The apps are from Google Play around 2015, so current apps may differ.
Facts taken from this source
- The 2015 peer-reviewed study analyzed the security behaviors of 139 keyboard apps available on Google Play.
“We also empirically analyzed the security behaviors of 139 keyboard applications that were available on Google Play.” (Abstract)
- In a 2015 peer-reviewed study, 84 of 139 keyboard apps on Google Play could be misused as keyloggers.
“the majority of existing keyboard applications (84 out of 139) could be potentially misused as malicious keyloggers” (Abstract)