Articles

1. Computer surveillance
2. Keystroke logging
3. Employee monitoring software
4. Spy software
5. Spyware

Computer surveillance

Computer surveillance is the act of surveilling people's computer activity without their knowledge, by accessing the computer itself. Computers make excellent surveillance tools because they can do things without their owners' knowledge or consent. Most computers have connections to networks, which can be exploited (through security cracking to gain access to any confidential data that may be stored on the computer. Additionally, if someone is able to install certain types of software on a system, they can turn it into a surveillance device.

A surveillance program installed on a computer can search the contents of the hard drive for suspicious data, can monitor computer use, collect passwords , and even report back to its operator through the Internet connection. The most common, surely, are commercial spyware designed to collect data.

The simplest way to place surveillance software on a computer is to gain entry to the place where the computer is stored and install it from a compact disc or floppy disk.

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Keystroke logging

Keystroke logging (often called keylogging) is a diagnostic tool used in software development that captures the user's keystrokes It can be useful to determine sources of error in computer systems and is sometimes used to measure employee productivity on certain clerical tasks. Such systems are also highly useful for law enforcement and espionage —for instance, providing a means to obtain passwords or encryption keys and thus bypassing other security measures. However, keyloggers are widely available on the Internet and can be used by private parties to spy on the computer usage of others. Keystroke logging can be achieved by both hardware and software means. Hardware key loggers are commercially available devices which come in three types: inline devices that are attached to the keyboard cable, devices which can be installed inside standard keyboards, and actual replacement keyboards that contain the key logger already built-in. The inline devices have the advantage of being able to be installed instantly. However, while they may go unnoticed for quite some time, they are easily detected visually upon closer inspection. Of the three devices available, the most difficult to install is also the most difficult to detect. The device that installs inside a keyboard (presumably the keyboard the target has been using all along) requires soldering skill and extended access to the keyboard to be modified. However, once in place, this type of device is virtually undetectable.

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Employee monitoring software

Employee monitoring software allows company administrators to monitor and supervise all their employee computers from a central location. It is normally deployed over a business network in seconds and allows for easy centralized log viewing via one central networked PC.

Related Techniques

• Keystroke Monitoring - Log all keystrokes along with the window name they are typed.
• Emails Sent and Received logging.
• Events Timeline Logging - Log all events employees performed and view them in an organized listing.
• Website Activity - Log all websites visited by the popular browsers.
• Application Usage - Monitor and log all applications ran.
• Documents Opened - Record documents and files opened and viewed.

Optional functions

• Remote Desktop Viewing - Grab screenshots of the remote computer's desktop.
• Remote System Information Viewing - View a listing of various system information for the remote PC.
• Remote Internet Connections Viewing - View a list of the current Internet connections on the remote machine.
• Remote Recent Document History Viewing.
• Remote Message Display.
• Remote System Lockdown Control.

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Spy software

Spy software (also known as "Computer Monitoring Software" or "keylogger") secretly records a computer user by capturing all keystrokes, websites visited, and chat conversations. Some of these spy software programs can even be installed remotely without being detected by commercial anti-virus software. There are several different uses for this type of software, with two of the most popular being child Internet safety and spousal monitoring.

Spy Software is installed directly by the user wanting to perform the monitoring. Many times spy software is confused with "spyware", but actually they are different. Spy software is often used by schools to monitor student activity. Some businesses use it to monitor employees behavior at the workplace.

Spy Software allows you to monitor your children, spouse or employees. It creates detailed reports for the purchaser's information, which are hidden from the person being monitored.

Spying software can also be in the form of web based service. In this type of spying service the user is not required to download any standalone application, everything is saved and maintained on the web server.

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Spyware

Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent. The term Spyware, which was coined in 1995 but wasn't widely used for another five years, is often used interchangeably with adware and malware (software designed to infiltrate and damage a computer respectively).

Personal information is secretly recorded with a variety of techniques, including logging keystrokes, recording Internet web browsing history, and scanning documents on the computer's hard disk. Purposes range from overtly criminal (theft of passwords and financial details) to the merely annoying (recording Internet search history for targeted advertising, while consuming computer resources). Spyware may collect different types of information. Some variants attempt to track the websites a user visits and then send this information to an advertising agency. More malicious variants attempt to intercept passwords or credit card numbers as a user enters them into a web form or other applications.

The spread of spyware has led to the development of an entire anti-spyware industry. Its products remove or disable existing spyware on the computers they are installed on and prevent its installation. However, a number of companies have incorporated forms of spyware into their products. These programs are not considered malware, but are still spyware as they watch and observe for advertising purposes. It is debatable whether such 'legitimate' uses of adware/spyware are malware since the user often has no knowledge of these 'legitimate' programs being installed on his/her computer and is generally unaware that these programs are infringing on his/her privacy. In any case, these programs still use the resources of the host computer without permission.

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