Although he was referring to the laws of leadership at the time, the same can be said for the laws of Internet abuse in the workplace today. Business owners establish a set of principles and policies for “acceptable use” of company-provided equipment and computers, and hope that employees will adhere to them.  But surprising things happen when employees bend the rules a little or break them altogether – especially when they think no one is watching.

Does your company have an Internet Acceptable Use Policy in place?
Does it account for 2010 technologies and new Internet habits of employees?

Take a page from our book — revisit your policies.

Visit http://www.spector360.com/whitepapers/index.htm and download a free copy of “Bringing Your Internet Acceptable Use Policy Up to 2010 Standards”. In it, you’ll find helpful advice about how to develop and implement an AUP, along with a sample agreement that can serve as a model to ensure your policies are up to date and in lockstep with social and technology changes.

It seems to be human nature to beat the system or at least try and create a better work/life balance by partaking in some personal email and Internet surfing during work hours.  Provided it is not a high-security environment, such as a hospital or government defense manufacturer, most employers seem to be flexible in allowing some degree of personal Internet use. Although the exact policies will vary from business to business, taking a page from John Maxwell’s book, these policies must also change to keep pace with adaptations in technology and human behavior.

Take, for instance, the explosion in social networking. Within the past few years, Facebook has grown to more than 350 million users – half of which check their profile every day.  There’s also been a huge spike in online gambling and gaming, Internet dating and porn – all of which serve as excellent arenas for socially engineered attacks by cybercriminals.

When major news breaks, or when websites like Match.com, Chatroulette or PeopleofWalmart catch people’s attention, they can become a huge distraction. Or, if those sites are blocked by the company’s Web filters, proxy sites like CantFilterMe allow employees to access them anyway. Before you know it, good employees can get carried away, or worse, can put your business at tremendous risk with a single click of the mouse.

Once a company’s 2010 policies are in place and communicated with employees, the next and more important step is to enforce the AUP using an award-winning corporate monitoring solution like Spector 360: http://www.spector360.com. If you suspect employees are bending the rules a little or breaking them excessively, you’ll have the insight and the tools to help curb bad habits and bring unwanted activity to a halt.

Like more than 50,000 businesses that use SpectorSoft products, you’ll be glad you did.

Launched in November 2009 by a 17-year-old Russian teen, Chatroulette is based on the roulette wheel model.

This new “web cam-based” social networking site can be far more addictive and dangerous than the immensely popular but sometimes risky sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, cautioned parents about Chatroulette. “This is a huge red flag,” said Allen. “This is extreme social networking. Absolutely random. No limits. Graphic sexual content. This is the last place parents want their kids to be.”

What is Chatroulette? Here’s how it works: your teen visits the website and states they are 16 years old. At this point, their web cam is connected with a random stranger and either person can decide to chat and watch the other, or hit the “next” button. The wheel spins again to reveal another stranger. As a parent, imagine your child sitting in the perceived safety of his/her bedroom while an infinite number of strangers are lined up in the hall to go into the room and meet with your child face-to-face. That’s Chatroulette in a nutshell.

Even though Chatroulette is a new Internet phenomenon, the site already claims to have more than 85,000 users and is quickly growing. In a recent airing of the “Early Show,” contributor and CNET Senior Editor Natalie Del Conte took a turn at Chatroulette’s wheel. Del Conte told “Early Show” co-anchor Harry Smith:

“I was really surprised. It makes me really discouraged about the state of humanity. Even when I met people that I thought were having cleaner conversations, a few lines down, they would offer to disrobe.”

- Natalie Del Conte, CNET Senior Editor

SpectorSoft Can Help

“Many parents are fearful of their children being exposed to inappropriate activity and content on social networking sites,” said SpectorSoft President C. Douglas Fowler. “For more than a decade, we have devoted ourselves to understanding and alerting parents to the dangers that exist online and providing the tools they need to keep their children safe. Parents need to be aware of the graphic nature of this new Internet obsession and ensure their children are protected against the actions of strangers on Chatroulette and other Internet sites.”

Another dangerous activity emerging from the new site is Chatroulette parties. Teens get together at a party to spin the roulette wheel, view and chat with strangers for entertainment. Peer pressure can make teens talk and do things with strangers that they normally would not do when they are alone. Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and Fox News contributor says, “It’s a predator’s paradise. This is one of the worst faces of the Internet I’ve seen.”

SpectorSoft urges parents to be aware of the potential dangers to their teens’ safety, particularly regarding this new chat phenomenon. The most common scenario is for teens to get together with their friends to play the game and see who they meet. Warn your children this is NOT a game and take precautions to be aware of what they’re really doing on their PCs and the Internet.

With Spector Pro or eBlaster installed, if kids do choose to play this dangerous game, you’ll be alerted and given the opportunity to cut off potential predators before they enter your kid’s world.

Microsoft plans to release connectors for Facebook and MySpace in the first half of 2010 and has publicly released an API and SDK so developers can build their own connectors to other popular social networking platforms.

What this Means for Your Company – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

On a positive note, bringing social network data into Outlook adds rich context to email communications.  Your company’s PR person may better able to engage a reporter by learning what he or she has recently focused on, before sending an email.   Sales and marketing professionals can gain better context into the professional backgrounds and interests of customers and partners as the basis for relationship building.

On the downside, Web filters will be less effective at curbing cyber slacking. Outlook is one of the most popular business applications today.  IT staff can set Web filters to prevent or restrict employee access to sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, but the buck stops at Outlook.  That’s where a corporate-wide monitoring product such as Spector 360 fills in the gaps and monitors human behavior as it relates to corporate security.

Spector 360 continually monitors employee PC and Internet activity — including cutting-edge email recording capabilities that provide a clear record of all email being sent and received in MS Exchange and Outlook, plus webmail services like Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo Mail.  It also captures user data for all web sites visited, chats and instant messages, keystrokes typed, files transferred, documents printed and applications run.

As employees start experimenting with the Outlook Connectors, Spector 360 will continually monitor user activity and can reveal whether people are using this new social connectivity in a positive way.  Through a first of its kind surveillance-like camera recording tool, Spector 360 can help you re-trace in exact visual detail what an employee did every step of the way… especially if they’re spending above-average time in Outlook.  Get immediate answers to questions such as:

Which employees are “lingering” in Outlook? Employees may spend more time in Outlook absorbing social networking details of known contacts – especially if the company blocks access to social networking sites in general.  Once Facebook and MySpace connectors are available, Outlook application usage could soar.  Spector 360 provides a number of application usage reports including applications launched most frequently, top applications, and which users are spending the most time within applications.

Which employees are posting more frequently to their own social networking profiles? As individuals become accustomed to seeing real-time updates in Outlook, they may be compelled to post to their own LinkedIn or Facebook profile more frequently.  Spector 360 provides comprehensive Web Site reports to reveal which sites are visited most frequently and which users are spending the most time on them. In addition, Spector 360’s built-in Web filtering can block or restrict access to social networking sites and proxy servers around the clock or just during peak work times.

Is employee “after hours” conduct affecting your business reputation? If employees are regularly posting to their personal Facebook or MySpace profiles, this information may soon be pulled into the Outlook inbox of your company’s customers, partners and prospects.  With high-level reports and charts, Spector 360 can help you quickly identify those employees who are most likely engaging in activities that may be harmful to your company’s reputation. You’ll be able to focus any detailed investigations on specific individuals, and adapt training programs to educate employees about acceptable conduct on the Internet and social networking sites.

Outlook Connectors – a Pandora’s Box for IT Staff?

From an IT standpoint, Outlook integration with social networks could create a Pandora’s Box full of other security problems. Cyber criminals are increasing the frequency and appeal of socially engineered attacks that exploit trust and familiarity between known contacts. The number of companies reporting spyware and malware attacks via social networks in 2009 increased by 70%.

Company confidentiality could also be compromised. The connector for LinkedIn creates a new Outlook Contacts folder that imports and contains LinkedIn contacts – even if they’re not located in a user’s regular contact list. This could have serious implications if a company-confidential email is mistakenly sent to Jane Smith at IBM rather than Jane Smith in the Finance department.

Given all of this, should Outlook Connectors be banned?  That is up to each business to decide.  With Spector 360, IT staff can create a customized Web Filtering list to block access to Outlook Connector software download pages, and customize a “web site blocked” error page that reminds employees of Internet use and application download policies.

This may also be a good time to implement an Internet Acceptable Use Policy (IAUP) or bring your existing policy up to 2010 standards. In addition to establishing guidelines for acceptable use of the Internet and computing resources, Spector 360 gives you the power to eliminate excessive and explicit Internet surfing while keeping your employees focused and on task — especially when that involves sending and receiving business emails in Outlook.

Read how to check the version

It feeds all recorded activities into a database and provides more than 50 easy-to-read management reports to spotlight which employees are spending excessive time on social networking sites, arriving late and leaving early, or sending the most emails with attachments. Some of the powerful new features in the new 2010 version of Spector 360 include:

• Centralized Event Alerts – detect data from recorded user activity that matches conditions you specify, such as when an employee has saved a confidential company file to a USB drive, or searches for the keyword “porn” online. Spector 360 provides a range of pre-defined conditions that can be activated and scheduled at certain intervals. The product also records details about which user activities caused the alert to trigger for later analysis.
• New Control Center and Dashboard Views – facilitate one-stop, point-and-click administration of a Spector 360 installation, as well as dashboard views for event alerts, group-aware reporting, and Web event reporting by category.
• New Recording Support – capture activity for native 64-bit systems, Lotus Notes and Domino recording, Windows Terminal Services and Citrix published applications, plus screen snapshots with time and date stamps, and more.
• Automatic Updates – allow Spector 360 to be configured to automatically install the newest Activity Recorders and Web Filtering Domain Categories on every new computer that joins the network.
• Support for Massive Scalability – up to thousands of client desktops per single installation, limited only by server machine resources.

Through a first of its kind surveillance-like camera recording tool, Spector 360 shows in exact visual detail what an employee does every step of the way for granular analysis on the desktop. It also provides a corporate-wide perspective of employee activity and patterns with easy-to-read reports, a centralized dashboard, event alerts, and unlimited customization.  Spector 360 gives companies increased visibility and insight to help prevent data loss and insider theft, and minimize productivity losses by monitoring ‘human behavior’ as it relates to computer and Internet usage across the entire organization, day and night, 365 days a year.

The latest version of Spector 360 is available for purchase at (772) 770-5670 or online at www.spector360.com, and ships with one full year of Premium Maintenance at no additional charge. More than 50,000 businesses worldwide have purchased SpectorSoft products to monitor employee activity, with astonishing results and insight into the ‘human element’ of corporate security.

This year’s theme is “Think B4 U Post!”  Hundreds of online and offline activities taking place today are designed to increase kids’ awareness for the consequences of cyber bullying, sexting, and sharing personal information online.

Instead of preventing kids from using these sites, the goal of Safer Internet Day is to “make them aware of the risks of sharing personal information online and to encourage them to control their online identity by thinking carefully about the consequences.”  The site offers links to resources for children, parents and teachers, along with creative videos that reinforce online ethics and responsibility to help prevent it from happening in the first place.

Sometimes kids get carried away and don’t realize that what they do or say online can have consequences in real life. Once an image is posted on a social networking site or profile, it’s difficult—if not downright impossible—to take it down.

As a parent, what can you do if your child’s photos or personal information suddenly appears online?

Family Circle magazine tackled this topic in the October 17th issue, offering practical advice to help minimize harm when a teen shares private information online. Start by confirming whether your son or daughter was the source of the information. Next, conduct searches on sites like Google, Bing and pipl.com to see what’s publicly available.

Family Circle also recommends parents “install monitoring software like Spector Pro” to capture usernames and passwords, and fix the situation so others can’t find it online later.

When it comes to keeping kids safe online, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We recommend installing Spector Pro and eBlaster on your child’s PC or Mac and start monitoring their online activity before something bad happens. Here’s why:

Spector Pro and eBlaster let you see everything your kids do on the computer, every minute they’re on it. What they’re seeing on their friends’ Facebook and MySpace pages, terms they’re searching on or using in chat, and what’s being said about them and to them by others—whether you’re at home or working late in the office. With Spector Pro’s industry leading screen snapshot feature, you can see everything they do in a “rewind and play” sequence, in the exact order they do it, step by step.

By watching and engaging your kids about specific situations, you can help them learn to exercise self-control, resist or report cyberbullying, make trusted friends online, and make smarter decisions. The products can inform you of sudden changes in a child’s interests (like Internet searches on the word “suicide” or “zerg”, which means “to gang up on someone”) that stem from cyberbullying. It can also warn you if an online pen-pal is daring them to be risky and do something like GNOC (get naked on camera).

SpectorSoft’s built-in filters, tools and control settings help you become more “Net savvy” in creating a safer online environment for your child. For example, the 2010 version of Spector Pro for Windows includes an Internet Chat Lingo translator that defines common acronyms like POS (Parents Over Shoulder) and MIRL (Meet in Real Life) that appear in chat conversations, and now lets you block specific individuals from chatting with them altogether.

You can download “A Parent’s Guide to Internet Lingo” and take our online Lingo Quiz at: www.FreeLingoGuide.com or watch a detailed video here: http://www.spectorsoft.com/mkt/consumervid-bare.html.

Most importantly, if you need to intervene and correct a situation gone wrong, you’ll already have the necessary tools, logins and passwords of your child’s social networking profiles and email accounts to act quickly to remove unwanted content, and identify other kids who may be contributing to the situation.

Chances are, if you’re proactively monitoring what they’re saying and seeing online, you are far more likely to prevent the situation from happening in the first place–which is the mission of Safer Internet Day: “to help contribute to making the online world a safe and secure environment that everyone can enjoy” (and kids can enjoy safely).

Now that’s something to celebrate!

This Australian banker was casually looking at racy photos of supermodel Miranda Kerr while someone else was filming a Channel 7 news segment nearby.  At one point he turns around in surprise, only to discover that his actions were also caught on camera.

Inappropriate?  Absolutely.

Actionable?  Still TBD by his employers.

Preventable?  YOU BET, with Spector 360!

Spector 360 records everything an employee does at the PC and on the Internet, including web sites visited, emails sent and received, chats and instant messages, keystrokes typed, files transferred, documents printed, and applications run. Through a first-of-its-kind surveillance camera-like recording tool, Spector 360 can also show in exact visual detail what an employee does every step of the way.

Kiely’s actions are not unusual.  Data shows that XXX-rated Internet ‘hits’ are highest during office hours than at any other time of the day, and that more than 50% of workers have admitted to viewing inappropriate photos or video while at work.  Regardless of whether you believe Kiely should be fired, his video clearly shows he was acting inappropriately on company time and computers.  It’s also been viewed 1.3 million times on YouTube.

Cyber-slacking is a billion dollar problem for businesses.  In addition to lost productivity and the obvious company liability surrounding such risky behavior by employees, adult Internet sites and email attachments also expose computers to viruses, adware, and spyware.

If your employees are looking at inappropriate photos during work hours, or just getting caught up in media hype, Spector 360 will detect and record it. Spector 360 can identify who is downloading the most attachments in email, what they’re viewing, what sites they’re logging in to, and much more.  Use high-level charts and graphs to quickly analyze trends and patterns.  Drill down to investigate suspect behavior.  Search employee activity for specific details from the convenience of your desktop, and immediately start saving money as casual cyber-slacking grinds to a halt.

Spector 360 drastically minimizes or eliminates behavior like Internet porn at work because it cuts right to the root of the problem: human nature. You can’t be there watch over the shoulders of employees every minute of every work hour, but Spector 360 can.

David Kiely will definitely be featured in the 2010 edition of our Top Ten Dumbest Things list as the whole world watched him… Live at Five, and busted!

Part 3:  Where Vision Beats Pain

In our first and second segments of this three-part series, we explored how always-on technology and changes in society are impacting the “human element” of PC and Internet security—both from a corporate perspective and as parents of today’s digital kids.  As 2010 unfolds, SpectorSoft sees several emerging and usage trends that warrant closer monitoring and inspection.  As we wrap up our Top 10 Predictions for 2010, we’ll explore the intersection of security versus privacy in the workplace, and how we believe vision beats pain…

8. The Black Market for Data Grows. Identity and credit card theft are not only crimes happening on the Web.  An estimated one-third of broadband users are pirating copyrighted media such as movies, music, and games.  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the most pirated title of 2009 with 4.1 million unauthorized downloads. In the workplace, people are becoming more aware of the value of corporate information and simply walking out the door with it.  Survey data suggests that as many as 41% of workers have taken sensitive data to a new position and 26% would pass on company information if it proved useful in getting friends or family a job.  In 2010, data theft will cost businesses billions of dollars, so they’ll be stepping up efforts to detect when sensitive documents are printed or saved to removable devices, especially if they’re required to comply with regulations like HIPAA.

9. The Points of Pain Will Double. Given the rapid advancements in Internet technology, we believe the “points of pain” driving business computer monitoring solutions will more than double in the next decade.  As recently as 2005, many SpectorSoft corporate customers noted as few as three such points: productivity loss, exposure to legal liability, and clogging of bandwidth. Recently, new pain points including data loss protection, document protection, fraud detection, viruses carried through social network sites and Webmail, and overall network security have been commonplace additions to the list. In 2010 and beyond, factors like cloud computing, entertainment via the Internet channel, unlimited broadband, and social freedom, will create additional concerns and drive the need for society to look from within and monitor computer and Internet activity more closely than ever before.

10. Vision Beats Pain. As pioneers in this market, we’ve discovered two types of customers… those who experience a pain-point and purchase monitoring products to investigate more closely; and companies and parents who continually watch the horizon and invest in monitoring software before something bad happens.  At SpectorSoft, we believe vision beats pain. We’re available 24/7/365 to share the message and help you make it through 2010 unscathed by giving you better insight and intelligence into PC and Internet usage, by helping you stop unwanted activity at the source, and by continually innovating our products.

SpectorSoft recently released Spector Pro 2010 and eBlaster 2010 for Mac and Windows. New features include enhanced activity recorders, keyword alerts, chat blocking, and a built-in “Internet Lingo” translator that reveals the true meaning of cryptic terms used in chat, email and instant messages. Additionally, SpectorSoft released the new 2010 version of its flagship corporate-wide monitoring product, Spector 360, with new features that include centralized event alerts, an updated control center, new dashboard views, and much more.  Spector 360 empowers companies of all sizes to address productivity, ethics, security, and compliance concerns head on by monitoring the human aspect of computer and Internet usage across the entire organization—day and night, 365 days a year.

Have something to add to the Top 10 list, or a new feature you’d like to see added to any of our products? We’d be glad to hear from you.

Part 2: Kids and their Digital Playground

In our first installation of this three-part series, we explored how always-on technology and changes in society are impacting the “human element” of PC and Internet security.  As 2010 unfolds, SpectorSoft sees several emerging and usage trends that warrant closer monitoring and inspection.  In this segment, we’ll take a closer look at today’s digital kids and how they’re driving changes in parenting and technology approaches to help keep them safe online…

5. Kids are More Net Savvy than Parents. We are raising a “digital generation” of kids who are naturally curious and comfortable with the Internet, yet often unaware that what they do or say online can have consequences in real life.  In turn, they’re taking bigger risks when it comes to sexting, cyberbullying, file sharing, gaming, and socializing on the Web. They’re also quick to bypass parental controls and filters when they want to access something they shouldn’t.  Keeping up is not as tough as it sounds.  Parents can start by making sure they’re the only ones with “admin rights” on home computers.  Also, parents can take five minutes to install PC and Internet monitoring software to capture everything they’re saying, seeing, and doing online. Parents can become more net savvy while helping their children make smarter decisions in cyberspace.

6. Kids are KPC (Keeping Parents Clueless). Ten years ago, few of us knew what LMAO and IMHO meant. Today, do you know what GNOC, IWSN, and ASL mean?  The English language is being overhauled with new alpha-numeric expressions to abbreviate phrases and conceal digital conversations. In 2010, “Chat Lingo” will expand with even more terms and new ways to express first-generation terms.  As a result, parents will rely on resources like “A Parent’s Guide to Internet Lingo” and tools like Spector Pro 2010 with built-in translation capabilities that instantly reveal the true meaning of thousands of terms used by kids in email, instant messages, and Facebook chat.  Watch a video or test your knowledge with our lingo quiz, and download a free copy of the guide at: www.FreeLingoGuide.com.

7. The Keyboard Packs a Punch. It is easier to make rude comments or threats toward someone when you’re not standing in front of them.  Social networking sites make it virtually irresistible for kids to post opinions and spread lies, rumors, and hateful messages.  Kids are also highly impressionable, so they may lash out or attempt physical harm if they feel they’re the victim of cyberbullying or sexting gone wrong.  In 2010, it is crucial that parents know what is being said to their child or teen by other children and by strangers.  Products like Spector Pro and eBlaster are praised for their unmatched ability to record both sides of every online discussion, and at SpectorSoft we’re especially touched when receiving comments like “Your company is saving young lives – be very proud!” … thank you parents, we are!

For the last part of our three-part series, we’ll take a closer look at the intersection of security versus privacy in the workplace, and how we believe vision beats pain…

At the heart of this success, is the tremendous support we’ve received from customers, partners, and believers. Many of you have made startling discoveries about PC and Internet use simply by observing what your employees or children are doing, saying, and accessing online. More than just monitoring activity, SpectorSoft products enable customers to STOP unwanted behavior at the source, which is almost always the click of a mouse or a keyboard.  It’s this “human element” of security that makes SpectorSoft products unique and extremely compelling.

As 2010 unfolds, SpectorSoft sees several emerging and usage trends that warrant closer monitoring and inspection in the coming year.  The first installation in this three-part series will explore changes on the Internet, and how these are impacting us as a society of digital thinkers and publishers…

1. Welcome to the “Now” Decade. People have a ravenous appetite for real-time information about everything from world events and natural disasters to celebrity deaths and scandals. For better or worse, 21^st Century technology has enabled people to do, see, and share information in real-time—whether they’re at home, at work, or on the go.  On a global scale, there are tremendous financial and political incentives that come with being able to control the flow of information via the Internet; and for some, to take advantages of its weaknesses to exploit businesses, consumers, and even kids who use it.  In turn, we anticipate a greater demand for PC and Internet monitoring solutions to detect what is being accessed and by whom, and to help ensure that the desire for information does not compromise IT security, business productivity, or child safety.

2. The Internet is Our New Drug of Choice. It’s no longer about sex, drugs and rock and roll.  Society’s rising obsession with Facebook, Twitter, sexting, online gaming, and porn, is fueling powerful new addictions.  At the same time, the median age of an “addict” is dropping as children gain access to the Internet at a much earlier age than, say, cigarettes or alcohol in past generations. From an adult standpoint, one in five divorce filings cite Facebook as a mitigating factor.  At work, more businesses will be scanning employee profile pages and proactively monitoring corporate networks looking for excessive use of Twitter, Facebook and Fantasy Football during work hours—and doing something about it.

3. This is a Surveillance Society. For personal safety and corporate security it has become necessary to document human activity—whether it be a bank, convenience store, school, library, government agency, doctor’s office, or business establishment. This also extends to personal and business computer systems.  Companies can be put into serious financial and compliance risk from employee misuse; and children can unknowingly wander into harmful situations online, even if they’re clicking away at the dining room table. In 2010, PC and Internet monitoring solutions will be more widely used for business and personal use to crack down on internet abuse and keep kids safe online.

4. Move Over SPAM, Make Room for Social SLAM. As much as we enjoy social networking, so do cyber criminals who take advantage of people’s trust in one another.  It’s both frustrating and embarrassing to get “slammed” by a Facebook virus from your brother who didn’t even know he sent it, or by inappropriate content posted on your wall or on YouTube for the whole world to see.  In 2009, 85% of all email traffic was believed to carry spam.  In 2010 and beyond, social networking sites and online communities will increasingly become the hot new carriers of Internet viruses, scams, phishing and clickjacking schemes (which can hijack your personal data or silently turn on your web cam and capture footage).

How will social slam affect you? At work, don’t be surprised if your company tightens its Acceptable Use Policy to protect corporate networks from being compromised from an innocent click during a lunch break. At home, serious concerns stemming from cyberbullying, child pornography and online predators may prompt parents to more closely monitor what their kids are doing and saying on social networks, and importantly, what they’re clicking on…

For our next installation in this three-part series, we’ll explore digital kids and their online exploration and habits…