It appears security researcher Mohamed Hassan’s claims that some Samsung laptops may be pre-loaded with StarLogger key logging software are untrue. The company has conducted a speedy investigation of the allegations made yesterday in articles appearing on NetworkWorld.com, and they believe them to be the result of false positive detection from security program VIPRE.

Samsung says: “The statements that Samsung installs keylogger on R525 and R540 laptop computers are false.

Our findings indicate that the person mentioned in the article used a security program called VIPRE that mistook a folder created by Microsoft’s Live Application for a key logging software, during a virus scan.

The confusion arose because VIPRE mistook Microsoft’s Live Application multi-language support folder, “SL” folder, as StarLogger.

Samsung will continue to respect customer needs by providing the highest quality products and services.”

Samsung also posted the following screenshot of the false positive from VIPRE as evidence to support their findings:

Given the relative frequency of false positive detections in security software, it would be unfortunate if the hoopla generated yesterday really was the result of such a virus scan.