MONITORING SOFTWARE BLOG

Monitoring software can promote productivity and help your company track and prevent insider threats. However, there is some debate about whether or not monitoring software compromises workplace culture and employees’ rights to privacy.

National and state legislation, like the GDPR and CCPA, allows consumers to have a say in the personal information that a company might collect and whether or not it can be sold. But are there protections in place for employees?

Depending on your businesses’ legal jurisdiction, some employee monitoring or data loss prevention (DLP) tactics could be breaching state or federal laws. In the United States, for example, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) prevents the gathering of information through oral, electronic, or wire communications. Businesses in states like Connecticut and Delaware are prohibited from electronically monitoring employees without giving them sufficient notice.  

Computer monitoring software is a must-have for businesses of all sizes. Not only will monitoring software watch network activity, but it will also provide useful tools for insider threat detection, productivity monitoring, and act as an additional safeguard against potential risks. 

Since monitoring software is a vital security measure, you want to be sure that you purchase an effective tracking tool with features that best suit your needs. 

With malicious data attacks on the rise and proving higher risk, it’s vital for enterprises to appropriately address potential system vulnerabilities and protect against a data breach. 

If your company stores personal data, such as social security numbers, customer passwords, or credit card numbers, then your company is at risk of having personally identifiable information stolen. This could result in massive data leaks which leads to identity theft and diminished customer trust. Unfortunately, since there are many ways a data breach can happen, it can be difficult to track and prevent them.

The World Health Organization has officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. With major national shutdowns effective in places like China and much of southeast Asia, the United States, Canada, Spain and Italy, many companies are being forced to send workers home to work remotely.

So far this pandemic has had global effects throughout all sectors. With high infection rates of COVID-19, self-isolation is becoming mandatory. Businesses are considering telework to first minimize the spread but also to maintain business continuity during the outbreak.

With an increasing number of individuals moving to the global marketplace for work, it should come as no surprise that nearly 102 million people are estimated to work from home in 2020. However, with this shift away from the traditional office space comes a number of drastic changes.

Where businesses are seeing the financial rewards of remote workplaces, like decreases in operating and capital expenses (IDC, 2019), there comes an additional number of unknown factors. Some of these include the inability to regulate security as efficiently, and the de-unification of company trust and culture.

Most businesses carry a value that can be sold or manipulated in some way. If you store data from past transactions or collect personal information as leads, then these sources can be easily tapped into and extorted for financial gain.

Many people believe that hackers are the primary source of data breaches. However, according to IBM’s 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Study, just under 50% of all data breach cases are caused by an insider threat. 

One type of insider threat that you should be worried about occurs when employees are leaving your company. Departing employees can make mistakes that leave holes in your company’s firewall, but often times departing employees steal data as deliberate theft and do so for financial gain and future career development.  

Combating an insider threat can often present a more complicated problem than malicious online attacks. Insider threats are typically your own employees, the people you are required to trust to complete daily tasks. What happens when one of those trusted employees goes rogue?

It can be difficult to detect an insider threat, and many businesses don’t recognize the threat until a breach has already occurred. However, fifty percent of all malicious attacks are from an inside attacker, and they could cost your company up to $2 million dollars in time and assets.

Your employees are capable of completing a malicious attack on your company either by opening up your firewall to allow access or by physically stealing data. It is vital to set up precautions in network security and the physical security of your business.