Four Things to Track Your Computer Usage at Work
If you didn’t already know, there are people in your company’s IT department who can see everything when needed. They are busy with other activities most of the time, but these four activities are likely to put you under the microscope .
Jake Swiringen of New York Magazine’s Select / All spoke with several sysadmins and network administrators to find out what would fall on their typical employee watchlist. For the most part, IT departments will have very little active monitoring because it costs them time and effort that is better spent elsewhere. But there are a few things that will cause confusion and grab attention:
- Poor Productivity: If you feel like you’re busy but you don’t have much to show, your boss might ask IT to track your IM traffic, email traffic, and application activity.
- Keeping personal files online: Many companies offer online storage for employees. If the sysadmin finds that an area is filling up too quickly or is running slower than usual, he will likely examine it and find anything you put there. It’s best to keep videos and music on your disks if you don’t want to sound the alarm.
- NSFW Files or Websites: Getting trapped with anything clearly NSFW on a company’s equipment almost guarantees a reprimand and / or surveillance.
- Suspicious non-technical behavior: In most cases, sysadmins are called in to monitor someone because of their behavior in the workplace. Secretive, sneaky, aloof, discordant, or even lazy behavior is sometimes enough to spot their radar.
Remember, everything you do with the company’s equipment can be seen . Files, messages and other data can be decrypted, intercepted in transit, or captured by a keylogger or screen capture software. The only way to keep your messages and other events private is to use your personal phone, not connected to your corporate Wi-Fi network. The entire article is worth reading, so check it out at the link below.
What You May Do That Will Make Your IT Pro Spy on You | New York Magazine