Corsair Denies Rumours that the K100 Keyboard Features a Hidden Keylogger

The Corsair K100 is currently one of the most premium and popular mechanical gaming keyboards around. No, it admittedly isn’t cheap, but in terms of functionality, it is undoubtedly a truly excellent design. – Over the last few months, however, a growing number of user reports have led to accusations that the K100 might feature something rather disturbing. Namely, some kind of hidden keylogging software.

The rumours have, in fact, grown to such proportions that following a report via TechSpot, Corsair has felt compelled to issue an official statement categorically denying that the K100 features any kind of keylogging capabilities.

Corsair Denies K100 Keylogging Accusations

I should note that I absolutely believe Corsair in regards to this, but you might be wondering what led to these accusations starting in the first place. Well, it initially came through a user report on the Corsair forums detailing an incident where a bulk section of recently typed text was being re-entered, without any user command, on the system. – This was subsequently followed up by a number of other users citing similar issues with the K100 in various different applications (emails, documents, social media, etc.).

So, with text having previously been entered being mysteriously retyped, this did (and not entirely unintelligently) lead to some making the conclusion that Corsair may have nefariously snuck some keylogging capabilities into the keyboard’s design. – The truth, however, is almost certainly a lot more boring.

Corsair Investigates – But a Culprit May Be Found

Corsair has said that with tens of thousands of K100 keyboards in consumers’ hands, the number of confirmed reports in regard to this issue is very small. What is causing it though? Well, while just a theory for the moment, Corsair has strongly alluded to a potential glitch within their software and specifically the ‘macro’ functionality. – And for those of you unaware, ‘macro’ commands allow users to program a set of instructions which can be enabled via the push of one of the single G1 to G6 keycaps.

In other words, a ‘macro record’ function might be getting incorrectly triggered which starts ‘remembering’ everything being typed without the user being aware. And then, when the command is once again erroneously triggered, with information now residing in that macro, it starts pasting what it copied before.

The good news is that Corsair has suggested that the problem can likely be fixed by resetting your K100 keyboard. How do you do this? Well, unplug it from the USB port, hold down ESC (escape), reinsert the USB, and let go of ESC after around 5-6 seconds. All going well, if the problem was lurking under the surface, it should promptly go away!

Admittedly though, this is a very weird bug, but I don’t think Corsair is spying on its customers. Well, not via hidden keyloggers at least!