MONITORING SOFTWARE BLOG

With new modes of analyzing productivity, legislation in Europe and now California is setting the boundaries around what can and should be monitored in the workplace. 

You may have heard of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which protects not only the personal data of your employees but so much more. And now, California has followed suit. Starting in 2020, California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will kick-off. 

Late last month, Capital One had a data breach that affected more than 100 million Americans and 6 million Canadians. This data leak mainly includes credit scores, credit limits, balances, payment history, and contact information. However, around 140,000 social security numbers and about 80,000 bank account numbers of Capital One credit card holders were stolen as well.

SoftActivity has released TS Monitor version 6.0, a major update of its user monitoring system for terminal services.

SoftActivity now makes it easier to protect employees privacy (such as for GDPR compliance in EU), while still recording all unsafe user activity that helps your organization improve employee productivity and detect insider threats early. Now it also includes admin audit log for improved HIPAA compliance in healthcare industry.

New version allows you to prevent recording of:

• personal online banking, password management apps, and other personal info of employees and customers. This can help organizations with GDPR compliance.
• regulated PHI (personal health information) for health-care industry, for improved HIPAA compliance;
• corporate financial and other sensitive apps;
• credit card numbers entered by employees, for PCI compliance;
• and other sensitive, private or regulated information.

What’s new in version 6.0

• Private apps and websites:
  • Admin can create a list of private apps and websites.
  • SoftActivity will NOT record screen copies, typed keystrokes and window name for private apps and websites.
  • It will only record a fact and duration of usage for private apps.
  • Edit Private apps list on Privacy tab in TS Monitor Configuration app on your servers. By default, it’s populated with popular financial websites and password managers.

• Application switched to x64 architecture for improved performance.
• Support of Windows Server 2019.
• Scheduled email reports with users activity summary. Admins will receive weekly report in PDF format with last week’s stats. To enable this report go to web console – Edit Account – Email Reports tab.
• Graphical charts added to Dashboard in web console:

• Export reports to PDF from the webapp, including pie charts, and new Attendance report:

• Dashboard: select more than 10 top records to view.
• Filter all reports by time in addition to days interval. Makes it easier to investigate user activity at a particular time of day.
• Ability to turn off screenshots panel at the bottom. If you are not using screenshots, you can now turn off the panel completely;
• Audit Log: view history of web console sign-in and sign-out events, and a log of all changes to the system made by admins and managers. Audit log is stored permanently for a year and cannot be deleted from the webapp. Can be seen only by admins. (Authorization monitoring is a requirement for HIPAA-compliant software).
• Auto sign-out admins and managers after 14 days, for improved security. Session expiration is a requirement for HIPAA-compliant software (the timeout can be adjusted).
• View users for Top Websites and Top Programs. Click an arrow next to any app or website to see which users spent the most time on the website:

• Web console is now available in Spanish. Switch your language at the bottom right corner.
• Support of the latest versions of web browsers such as Chrome 7x, Windows Server updates, better compatibility with antivirus products.
• Improved performance of user session recording and webapp server. Now uses even less server CPU than in previous versions.
• Configuration app supports dark mode on Windows Server 2019.
• Other numerous fixes, improvements and optimizations.
• Database in version 6.0 is compatible SoftActivity Monitor 12 for workstations, and can be shared with that application.

SoftActivity is announcing the release of SoftActivity Monitor version 12.0. It’s a major update of its leading employee monitoring system used by thousands of organizations for protection from insider threats.

SoftActivity now makes it easier to protect employees privacy (such as for GDRP compliance in EU), while still recording all unsafe user activity that helps your organization improve employee productivity and detect insider threats early. Now it also includes admin audit log for improved HIPAA compliance in healthcare industry.

New version 12.0 allows you to prevent recording of:

• personal online banking, password management apps, and other personal info of employees and customers. This can help organizations with GDPR compliance.
• Regulated PHI (personal health information) for health-care industry, for improved HIPAA compliance;
• corporate financial and other sensitive apps;
• credit card numbers entered by employees, for PCI compliance;
• and other sensitive, private or regulated information.

What’s new in version 12.0

• Private apps and websites:
  • Admin can create a list of private apps and websites.
  • SoftActivity will NOT record screen copies, typed keystrokes and window name for private apps and websites.
  • It will only record a fact and duration of usage for private apps.
  • Edit Private apps list in Agent Properties – Privacy tab for All Agents or on individual level. By default, it’s populated with popular financial websites and password managers.

• completely new modern UI look with support of Dark Mode (optional):

• switched to x64 architecture for improved performance. Warning! Desktop app does not support x32 Windows editions anymore. Agent still supports both x32- and x64-bit Windows editions.
• greatly improved performance of Agent: now uses even less CPU than in previous versions.
• support of the latest versions of web browsers, Windows updates, better compatibility with antivirus products.
• other improvements and fixes.

New in your on-premise web console:

• Scheduled email reports with users activity summary. Admins will receive weekly report in PDF format with last week’s stats. To enable this report go to Edit Account – Email Reports tab;
• Graphical charts added to Dashboard:

• Export reports to PDF from the webapp, including pie charts, and new Attendance report:

• Dashboard: select more than 10 top records to view;
• Filter all reports by time in addition to days interval. Makes it easier to investigate user activity at a particular time of day;
• Ability to turn off screenshots panel at the bottom. If you are not using screenshots, you can now turn off the panel completely;
• Audit Log: view history of web console sign-in and sign-out events, and a log of all changes to the system made by admins and managers. Audit log is stored permanently for a year and cannot be deleted from the webapp. Can be seen only by admins. (Authorization monitoring is a requirement for HIPAA-compliant software);
• Auto sign-out admins and managers after 14 days, for improved security. Session expiration is a requirement for HIPAA-compliant software. Time can be adjusted by setting SA_TOKEN_EXPIRATION_DELTA=xxxx (minutes) in web-env.txt file
• View users for Top Websites and Top Programs. Click an arrow next to any app or website to see which users spent the most time on the website:

• Improved performance: webapp uses less CPU on the server;
• Web console in Spanish. Switch your language at the bottom right corner;
• Other numerous fixes, improvements and optimizations

Learn how to protect your organization from dangerous insider threats .

Many companies are looking towards using employee monitoring software throughout their business so they can keep an eye on their employees and track their activities better. However, implementing such a system can be a lot more complex than it might seem at first. Deploying monitoring software throughout your company will come with numerous benefits, but there are also a few pitfalls that should be avoided.

SoftActivity is glad to announce the release of new version 11.8 of SoftActivity Monitor, its leading computer monitoring software. It’s used by companies to protect against insider threats and improve employees productivity. This new version makes it easier to manage large lists of monitored computers.

Improvements in version 11.8:

• new: multi-select in Agents list. Select multiple computers in the list and drag them to a group or dashboard, delete them, or right click and perform other actions: as assign to a group, send a message, shut down selected computers, etc. This could previously be done only with one Agent at a time.

• new: search in Agents list. Click Search or press Ctrl+F in Agents list.

• new: Agent update is now optional in some releases. For example, current version 11.8 of Monitor supports previous version 11.7 of Agents and does not require an update. (To force update of Agents manually, right click any Agent and click Update/Repair Agent, select Do this for all computers check box)
• fix: incorrect duration displayed in Top Programs and Top Websites in webapp if longer than 24 hours.
• other fixes and improvements