KGB to keep an eye on employees

Installing spyware on the PCs in your organization can be good for employee discipline, a software developer has claimed.

"Employees perform better under constant supervision. A real-time computer surveillance system is a perfect manager's tool to monitor employees and provide instant feedback," said Refog Software, which is based in Russia.

The company said that its KGB Employee Monitor software can be run visibly or invisibly, and "is ideal for improving employee discipline, uncovering industrial espionage and detecting information leakages before the damage is done."

As with other spyware programs intended for legitimate uses, such as monitoring your children's PC usage, the $149 program records keystrokes, logs clipboard entries and Web sites visited.

It also takes a snapshot of the active window on the user's desktop either at pre-set intervals or on every mouse click, and can be tuned to monitor only certain applications, sending time-stamped reports by e-mail or FTP and then cleaning its cache to cover its own tracks.

Refog said that KGB Employee Monitor, which is a network edition of its KGB Spy stand-alone tool, monitors staff in real-time, as well as via e-mailed reports. The spyware can also be set to send an e-mail alert when the computer user types a specific word, such as a forbidden term.