Employees monitoring software is a great tool for many things, including increased productivity, control and overview of tasks and projects, as well as providing a certain degree of automation and optimization of business processes. However, there is one other thing that program activity monitor can be a great asset in - data security.

Protecting sensitive data and client information is of utmost importance to any business that wants to retain those clients and keep their reputation. And companies are recognizing insider threats as a serious issue. Even though you should (and probably already do) have preventative measures in place, an additional layer of security is never too much. This role can be filled in perfectly by monitoring software for employees.

Among its many features, there are four in particular that can prove invaluable to providing this extra security for your business data:

1. Real Time Monitoring

Monitoring software for employees allows you to keep tabs on what each of your employees is doing at any given time. In Insightful, for example, you can see a clear dashboard with all employees and teams in one place along with the information on which application they’re currently using or which website they’re on. But more on that later.

For now, we’ll focus on the fact that all the computer user tracking data is given in real time. What this effectively means for data security is that your reaction to any suspicious digital behavior can in theory be instantaneous.

We say ‘in theory’ because the success of your effort still hinges on your ability to recognize what suspicious behavior looks like. But if you clearly define what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to spot it right away and work on preventing, or at least containing the threat.

One more thing to keep in mind is the fact that, according to research, a quarter of security breaches are due to human error, meaning they’re accidental. Which is one more reason why real time monitoring can be useful - to both spot the potential leak and to get an opportunity to educate employees about the dangerous behavior.

2. Use of Apps and Websites

As promised, let’s move on to how desktop surveillance software’s unique ability to detect which apps and websites are being used can help with discovering threats to sensitive information.

Basically, because you know each employee’s exact job role and which programs they typically use, it’s easy to discover any deviation from this work pattern within your monitoring software for employees. This is how you can define suspicious behavior. For instance, it might be computer software that is totally outside a particular employee’s professional niche or any type of website that is untrusted, such as a file sharing site that your company doesn’t use.

This data from software that tracks computer usage, along with the real time monitoring possibility, allows you to recognize potential risk and react quickly.

3. Screenshots

Another feature of some of the best PC monitoring software is the possibility to take screenshots of employees’ computers manually at any time or automatically at certain intervals without them being able to know that the screenshot has been taken.

You might have noticed that when we talked about discovering breaches so far, we’ve only mentioned ‘potential threats’. This is because you can’t make assumptions about every single deviation. But employee screenshot monitoring can help confirm or disregard your suspicions.

This way, you can closely monitor risky activity without needlessly disturbing the employees. If you have reasonable grounds for suspecting a certain individual or group of employees to be a risk to information security, you can set up regular screenshots for increased control. But be careful not to overdo it; there’s still this thing called employee privacy that you need to respect.

4. Automatic Time Mapping

Finally, if you want a precise overview of who is accessing which exact files and not just which apps, automated time tracking can be precisely what you need. This system monitoring software functionality detects who accessed which file or document and how long they spent there.

Therefore, an employee opening up a file that’s not a part of their project might be a red flag which you’ll be able to notice right away.

Conclusion

Data security and protecting client information are among the top priority concerns for almost every company out there, so keeping an eye on this aspect of business is crucial as you can never be too sure. Monitoring software for employees can be used as an additional layer of data protection that can help you discover potential accidental or intentional insider threats early.

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