Monitoring User Activity for Suspicious Behavior

When we’re talking about monitoring humans, it always sounds intrusive. To get this idea out of the way, it’s important to say that user monitoring implies that it’s conducted in a compliant way that doesn’t harm anyone’s privacy. 

When we consider the problems caused by malicious activities, it’s obvious why some level of monitoring must exist. The average cost of a data breach can go more than 4 million dollars, an amount that can crumble a lot of companies, big and small. 

User monitoring, improved website security, and numerous other methods are great at preventing such troublesome situations. This article will go through some of the key characteristics of user monitoring and how they benefit companies. 

Importance of activity and transaction tracking

When you have a number of employees, each working on their tasks, you often don’t know how they proceed from point A to point B. If they complete their tasks, you likely won’t bother looking into their processes. 

User, or in other words, employee tracking helps you ensure that you understand the process behind the one’s work. The idea that their work is being tracked ensures that they won’t engage in harmful activities or have a drop in their productivity. 

When we’re talking about user monitoring for internal protection, it ensures that users who engage in malicious activities are stopped before they execute their plan or at least help you recognize the problems on time. 

The ways in which user activity is tracked significantly differ in remote and brick-and-mortar companies. This is mainly because remote workers have their own devices that you can’t fully monitor. Of course, tracking personal devices is quite intrusive, and it shouldn’t be practiced anyway. 

Tracking software gathers logs and analysis for each session, as well as video recordings, keystroke logging, and numerous other activities, depending on the software you choose. In an office environment, you have an option to track basically all activities someone has on their computer, but this isn’t exactly possible with remote work. 

While much easier to track than work activity, transactions also need to be tracked. Depending on your finance department, an occasional analysis of your expenses should be conducted. Even if there isn’t anyone who’s misusing company funds, you can stumble upon services that you’re paying yet aren’t using or if there are expenses that are unnecessarily high. 

Advantages of user monitoring

As mentioned a couple of times throughout the article, one of the most important advantages of user monitoring is to stop any malicious activities before they completely unfold. However, there are a couple more advantages that can be mentioned.

Any way of increasing website security is minimizing the chances of your business getting off track. This is leading to an increase in productivity in the long run. On the other hand, tracking user activity also motivates them to be more aware of their work. 

Suspicious behavior explained

Before you start to track suspicious behaviors, it’s important to understand what you’re exactly looking for. Every company has different processes, which means that your threats won’t come in a pre-determined manner. 

An eCommerce website and a SaaS company won’t have the same weaknesses nor the ways in which insiders can exploit them. 

One of the most problematic occurrences your business can experience is unauthorized changes to the database. These can be signs of both internal and external attacks, and recognizing changes here can prevent larger problems further up on the road. 

Every user in a company has certain permissions relevant to their role. An SEO expert might be able to publish and delete articles, while a programmer can access the backend of your website or service. User privileges need to be strictly monitored and handled. The rule of least privilege is often used in this manner, ensuring that no employee has more permissions than needed.

Unapproved changes to the user’s level of privilege can be a sign of wrongdoing. If you notice that someone is logging in at odd hours, accessing certain resources remotely, or failing to log in multiple times, this can be a sign of unauthorized access by an internal or external threat.

An important type of log that you should keep is the time of file configurations. This is especially crucial for important files, such as website code or configuration files. Tracking their changes can help you return the website to the previous state if a problematic change happens. Another suspicious behavior includes odd traffic on your network. This can happen in the form of an increase in internal traffic at odd hours, changes in performance, or protocol violations and problems. Unauthorized access to ports is also a signal that someone is trying to harm your system. 

Methods of user monitoring

There are numerous ways in which you can conduct user monitoring. There’s a whole category of software that’s committed to doing that. Such software allows you to track employees in various ways.

However, many of the employee tracking software is more geared towards productivity tracking and invoicing rather than stopping suspicious behavior. It’s advised that you do thorough research on such options and choose the platform that helps you with recognizing problematic behavior. 

It’s also worth mentioning that various platforms have features that allow you to monitor suspicious behavior without additional software. For example, operating systems allow you to check when certain files were changed last time. 

On the other hand, content management systems also give you information on previous updates, backups, and numerous security features that prevent anyone from making changes unauthorizedly. 

If the company finds user monitoring essential for security and protection, the development of in-house tracking software is the best bet. This ensures that the software has only the features necessary for your specific occasion. 

Data regulations and user monitoring

Regardless of the method in which you’re tracking your employees, it’s essential that this happens in a compliant way. Depending on the region where you’re operating, you should explore GDPR, CCPA, and other regional data regulations. 

All types of data need to be gathered and protected accordingly, ensuring that the data isn’t misused. Failing to collect data in a way that’s compliant with regulations that apply to you can do more harm than good. 

Breaking GDPR or CCPA can lead to significant fines that can be just as expensive as data breaches. To prevent this, you need to be transparent with your users about the data that you’re gathering and how it’s used. 

Any misuse of the agreements can be considered a breach of contract. If you, as a company, get recognized as misusing user data and breaching their privacy, this can lead to both financial losses and blows to your reputation.

Top talents are going to be less likely interested in working for you, and it’s quite possible that customers would boycott you as well. 

Other tools for website security

While the main goal of user monitoring is to prevent internal threats, you shouldn’t neglect the idea of hackers from the outside trying to attack your platform. Furthermore, an internal attack can be complementary to an individual from the outside trying to steal data. 

A great way to ensure the security of your website is through penetration tests. This method simulates an attack on your website, helping you expose any vulnerabilities before someone else does. There are multiple types of penetration tests, allowing you to improve the security of various parts of your business. 

Another important method for increasing internal security is segmenting your network into departments. This ensures that your employees won’t have access to sensitive information that other departments harbor. 

You can also rely on the legal aspect by having agreements with each individual employee on what security breaches are and what the consequences of those are. These can come in the form of non-disclosure agreements or as a part of a hiring contract 

Monitoring user activity can be essential for your business security

There are numerous methods that can increase your business security. None of them are completely efficient on their own. User activity is a great method of ensuring that there aren’t any wrongdoers among your employees and users. 

Of course, monitoring can bother those who don’t have any wrong intentions, but it’s for the greater good of the business. Problematic situations are best prevented at their root. Without having the opportunity for their plans to unfold, your business will avoid unnecessary problems.

However, don’t completely rely on user activity for your security requirements. You still need to have cybersecurity protocols in place, real-time protection, and a safety network that will protect you from external threats. 

About Writer

Veljko is a student of information technology who paired his passion for technology with his writing skills. He enjoys researching topics such as robotics and programming and cultivates his knowledge in philosophy, classical literature, and fitness. Veljko’s favorite writers are Borislav Pekić, Miloš Crnjanski, and Ernest Hemingway. 

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