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Purpose

Insiders are the leading cause of data breaches around the globe. IBM found that 60% of all cyberattacks were caused by insiders.³ In its annual Data Breach Investigations Report, Verizon found an even higher impact, with 82% of all data breaches caused by unsecure or unintentional behaviors of employees.⁴ IT organizations have turned to employee monitoring software to help detect and prevent insider threats.

Employee monitoring software is used to supervise employees' performance, prevent illegal activities, avoid confidential info leakage, and catch insider threats. Nowadays employee monitoring software is widely used in technology companies.⁵

Features

An employee monitoring system can monitor almost everything on a computer, such as keystrokes, mouse movements and passwords entered, websites visited, chats in Facebook Messenger, Skype and other social media. A piece of monitoring software can also capture screenshots of mobile activities. E-mail monitoring includes employers having access to records of employee’s e-mails that are sent through the company’s servers.⁶ Companies may use keyword searches to natural language processing to analyze e-mails.⁷ The administrator can view the logs through a cloud panel, or receive the logs by email.

Other kinds of monitoring include webcam and/or microphone activation, and "invisible" monitoring.^89101112 Employee monitoring software has been called a form of spyware.¹³¹⁴ During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of these systems by companies to monitor their employees increased.¹⁵¹⁶

Criticism

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which originated the term "bossware", has denounced employee monitoring software as a violation of privacy.¹⁷¹⁸ The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) denounced bossware as a threat to the safety and health of employees.¹⁹

During the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the r/antiwork subreddit shared various mouse jiggler strategies to combat monitoring software intended to monitor the productivity of remote workers.²⁰

A study by Reports and Data predicts that the global market for employee remote monitoring software will hit $1.3 billion by 2027.²¹

See also

• Computer surveillance – Monitoring of computer or network activityPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Computer surveillance in the workplace – Use of computers to monitor activity and collect performance data in a workplace
• Job satisfaction – Attitude of a person towards work
• Malware – Malicious software
• Network monitoring – Use of a system that monitors a computer network
• Spyware – Malware that collects and transmits user information without their knowledge
• Trojan horse – Type of malware
• User activity monitoring – Information security practice

References

1. "What Is Employee Monitoring Software? (with pictures)". wiseGEEK. Archived from the original on 2018-01-02. Retrieved 2018-01-02. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-employee-monitoring-software.htm ↩

2. "What is employee monitoring?". WhatIs.com. Archived from the original on 16 February 2018. Retrieved 16 February 2018. http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/employee-monitoring ↩

3. Zadelhoff, Marc van (2016-09-19). "The Biggest Cybersecurity Threats Are Inside Your Company". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012. Retrieved 2024-05-29. https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-biggest-cybersecurity-threats-are-inside-your-company ↩

4. "Data Breach Investigations Report - 2022" (PDF) Verizon, 2022. Retrieved 5/29/2024. https://www.verizon.com/business/en-gb/resources/2022-data-breach-investigations-report-dbir.pdf ↩

5. Ciocchetti, Corey A. (2011). "The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Employee Monitoring". American Business Law Journal. 48 (2): 285–369. doi:10.1111/j.1744-1714.2011.01116.x. ISSN 1744-1714. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-1714.2011.01116.x ↩

6. Spitzmüller, Christiane; Stanton, Jeffrey M. (June 2006). "Examining employee compliance with organizational surveillance and monitoring". Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 79 (2): 245–272. doi:10.1348/096317905x52607. ISSN 0963-1798. https://dx.doi.org/10.1348/096317905x52607 ↩

7. Spitzmüller, Christiane; Stanton, Jeffrey M. (June 2006). "Examining employee compliance with organizational surveillance and monitoring". Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 79 (2): 245–272. doi:10.1348/096317905x52607. ISSN 0963-1798. https://dx.doi.org/10.1348/096317905x52607 ↩

8. Gilliland, Donald (2021-07-24). "Warning: Your boss is probably spying on you — and it could be bad for your health". The Hill. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/564668-warning-your-boss-is-probably-spying-on-you-and-it-could-be-bad-for-your ↩

9. Cole, Samantha (2021-12-08). "Workers Are Using 'Mouse Movers' So They Can Use the Bathroom in Peace". Vice. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gqgp/mouse-mover-jiggler-app-keep-screen-on-active ↩

10. Cyphers, Bennett; Gullo, Karen (2020-06-30). "Inside the Invasive, Secretive "Bossware" Tracking Workers". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/inside-invasive-secretive-bossware-tracking-workers ↩

11. Klosowski, Thorin (2021-02-10). "How Your Boss Can Use Your Remote-Work Tools to Spy on You". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-your-boss-can-spy-on-you/ ↩

12. Crispin, Jessa (2021-09-16). "Employers are spying on us at home with 'tattleware'. It's time to track them instead". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/16/tattleware-employers-spying-working-home ↩

13. Cole, Samantha (2021-12-08). "Workers Are Using 'Mouse Movers' So They Can Use the Bathroom in Peace". Vice. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gqgp/mouse-mover-jiggler-app-keep-screen-on-active ↩

14. Crispin, Jessa (2021-09-16). "Employers are spying on us at home with 'tattleware'. It's time to track them instead". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/16/tattleware-employers-spying-working-home ↩

15. Klosowski, Thorin (2021-02-10). "How Your Boss Can Use Your Remote-Work Tools to Spy on You". The New York Times. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-your-boss-can-spy-on-you/ ↩

16. ‘Bossware is coming for almost every worker’: the software you might not realize is watching you The Guardian. 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/27/remote-work-software-home-surveillance-computer-monitoring-pandemic ↩

17. Cyphers, Bennett; Gullo, Karen (2020-06-30). "Inside the Invasive, Secretive "Bossware" Tracking Workers". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/inside-invasive-secretive-bossware-tracking-workers ↩

18. "Warning: Bossware May Be Hazardous To Your Health" (PDF). Center for Democracy & Technology. 2021. Retrieved 2024-05-15. https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-29-Warning-Bossware-May-Be-Hazardous-To-Your-Health-Final.pdf ↩

19. Scherer, Matt (2021-09-16). "Strategies to Tackle Bossware's Threats to the Health & Safety of Workers". Center for Democracy and Technology. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://cdt.org/insights/strategies-to-tackle-bosswares-threats-to-the-health-safety-of-workers/ ↩

20. Cole, Samantha (2021-12-08). "Workers Are Using 'Mouse Movers' So They Can Use the Bathroom in Peace". Vice. Retrieved 2021-12-22. https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gqgp/mouse-mover-jiggler-app-keep-screen-on-active ↩

21. "Workplace monitoring platform Aware takes in $60M". VentureBeat. 2021-10-13. Retrieved 2022-08-09. https://venturebeat.com/business/workplace-monitoring-platform-aware-takes-in-60m/ ↩