With the number of insider-related breaches rising every year, employee monitoring is becoming a common practice. Modern employee monitoring solutions help businesses track their employees’ productivity and work attendance, minimize administrative work, and enhance cybersecurity. In this article, we discuss why you should monitor your office staff, list the benefits and shortcomings of doing so, and explore best practices for monitoring your employees efficiently yet respectfully.

The year 2020 has left many people feeling like we are living in the twilight zone as the coronavirus sweeps the globe, changing life as most know it. From embracing the reality of a fully remote workforce, to dealing with ruthless cyber attackers taking advantage of unsuspecting people looking for help, and like all things, technology is playing a pivotal role in the way the pandemic plays out.

In casual conversation, threats, vulnerabilities, and risks are often talked about interchangeably. The reality is that the three are quite different. Threats represent something that might happen. Vulnerabilities show that systems have inherent weaknesses attackers may exploit. Risks keep business owners up at night by shining a light on potential harm inherent in running an enterprise.

AT&T Alien Labs® Open Threat Exchange® (OTX) recently created a pulse for a new threat entitled the RIG Exploit Kit which had been observed distributing ransomware to victim companies across a variety of industry verticals. This exploit was discovered by BroadAnalysis who outlined the exploit’s intricacies in a whitepaper that was released December 2, 2019.

With so many of us frantically learning to juggle our roles as parents, workers and most recently teachers; is it just my wife and I who feel it necessary to monitor the online activity of our teenagers during this lockdown? Sure, there’s rich educational content out there, but it sits amongst social networks, streaming services, gaming consoles and a world of other distractions. I almost miss the days when staring out of the window was a reasonable ‘get out’!

Many in the digital security community are coming together to combat malicious actors during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global outbreak. One of the most visible of these new efforts is the COVID-19 CTI League. Made up of approximately 400 volunteers living in approximately 40 countries, the COVID-19 CTI League is working to block attackers from health care organizations and other medical facilities at this juncture.

Given the situation that many companies, organizations and government agencies have been forced into working remotely due to COVID-19, it is imperative to give some thought about corporate security.