If you find this process running on a laptop, right-click the Speaker icon in the system tray. If a Realtek or OEM-specific menu appears, the executable is likely a benign driver component.
While the modern "Voice Recorder" app (now called "Sound Recorder") runs under a UWP container (usually SoundRecorder.exe ), older builds of Windows 10 contained a background stub named audiorecord.exe used for Cortana’s voice activation or Xbox Game Bar’s "Record what happened" feature. audiorecord.exe
In 2023, security researchers flagged a variant of the Agent Tesla keylogger that dropped a file named audiorecord.exe into the AppData\Roaming folder. Its purpose? To capture microphone input every 60 seconds, compress it to MP3, and exfiltrate it to a Telegram bot. Because the file name looked like a system process, many users ignored the high microphone usage in the privacy settings. If you find this process running on a
Part of the open-source PSAudio module (or legacy Windows SDK samples), there are official command-line tools designed to capture audio for testing and automation. In this context, audiorecord.exe is a lightweight console app that records sound from a microphone or system output directly to a WAV file. In 2023, security researchers flagged a variant of
C:\Windows\System32\ (rare) or C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\ (common). Digital Signature: Should be signed by Microsoft Corporation . The Driver Utility: Realtek and Audio OEMs Realtek’s HD Audio Manager and other sound card drivers have historically used generic executable names to manage microphone arrays. Some OEM builds (Dell, HP, Lenovo) include a diagnostic tool named audiorecord.exe that runs at startup to test microphone gain or enable "Far Field Pickup" (FFP) for conference calls.