What is MAS?
MAS (monitoring and auditing) can protect your business or firm from both internal and external security threats by monitoring all network activity and can help your business meet compliance requirements and maintain the integrity of your electronic files. MAS is a complete computer activity monitoring package and can satisfy the requirements of the CJSM. Once installed across a network, MAS will track changes to hardware and software throughout your organisation. MAS captures and securely stores records of all user activity, not just on the internet but in every application including email, word processing, spread sheet applications, instant messaging and online.
Employee computer monitoring can not only protect a company from security threats and legal problems it is also helpful for maintaining productivity and ensuring that employee satisfaction remains high. MAS enables the entire output of a firm available to be made available to the Partners, Directors or Owners, via a range of simple to use reports and other tools. For the first time ever, it makes it possible to measure staff performance and to be able to highlight high and low performers and those that are a threat to the company.
Features and Benefits
Monitoring Every Keystroke
Quite simply, MAS monitors every keystroke, on every machine that it is installed upon. This includes word processors, email and Internet applications. Remote machines can also be monitored. The information is recorded into an integral SQL database that can be easily interrogated by the 200+ plus supplied reports. It can be installed either covertly or overtly, according to preference.
It is important to understand that this information can be used for a number of purposes. The obvious security aspect is perhaps the one that readily springs to mind, whereby all user input is captured and can be easily searched through. The inbuilt reports can search for non-business use, for such items as Face book, Twitter etc. but it is also possible to conduct a complete keystroke search. This could be for the name of a client, a particular document or a term that could have been used in a defamatory email. This search could be conducted for a particular user, machine or for all users and machines in a business, regardless of numbers.
Monitoring Computer Screens
To supplement the recording of every keystroke, by default a screen shot of every machine is taken every 15 seconds. This interval may be increased or decreased according to each user or machine. It is then simple to play back the work actually undertaken on a machine, during a particular time period, with the inbuilt tools. Certain files or applications can be configured as 'Hot Zones' which when accessed will increase the frequency of screen shots to capture a complete record of activity.
Real Time Alerts
A facility to specify certain words as real time alerts is specified, for example the term pornography or a client name of Willis might be specified. When either of these terms was entered onto a computer then a warning message would be displayed, in real time, on a specified management machine.
Providing Redundancy
Because all keystroke information is recorded into a large database, it is possible to reconstruct a document, should that document be lost or destroyed in case of a backup failure. Equally, in case of a dispute, the exact time and date that a document was created can be established, including the content of the document and where and when it was printed.
User Profiling
There are many uses to MAS that may not readily spring to mind. Because all information is recorded, including log on, printing and time spent in particular applications, it is possible to ascertain who the most productive staff are and what they actually spend their time doing during the course of a day. This information can be used for the purposes of creating a standard job profile, for rewarding productive staff or penalising less efficient staff members.
Network Security
Standard network Operating Systems, such as Windows Server, when used in conjunction with XP or earlier operating systems, provide very little in terms of physical network security. Group Policy can be used to tighten security but when it comes to physically interacting with a network computer, there is very little that XP can do to control it. This means that it is possible to attach a USB device to a machine and download documents, files etc. onto it. These documents could be client files, contracts or anything that was available to a particular user on a network. Equally, files could be uploaded onto the network which can introduce viruses or could contain data that is prohibited by law, for example, pornographic images.
MAS provides a facility to either completely block USB access to machines on a network or to ensure that only authorised personnel are allowed to use them. It is also possible to ensure that only authorised USB devices are used. Further, a complete record is maintained of all software installed upon a machine, including times and dates of installation etc.