Email Tracking

[sectech]

I found the article on mobile phone tracking very interesting and I have added the link to my favourites, did you know that you could apply the same technology to emails and internet activity, there is software out there that can track and trace emails and online activity.

In today’s world more companies conduct business online and “surveillance” is just as important, this can be achieved by monitoring emails and reviewing online activities many companies would better benefit from this type of technology.


As a former BG myself I appreciate that may not be entirely relevant to the topic that was raised “but” I hope that it makes you ask a question of what the relevance is, if you are protecting a client and you had the ability to see internal staff online activates or internet activates would this make your protection work any easier? I am not saying it would, but, let’s look at the scenario I had when I did my BG training, a former employee was sacked and someone in the company was feeding inside info on where the client was going to be, relevant, well if this information was being passed via email, it would make your life easier.


Please let me know what you think!!!

Sectech

[SS227]

Indeed. I have a few tracking programs myself. But the problem is if the user uses anti-virus software, the use of such programs become uselsess. As the anti-virus programs will reckognize them.

[goshinmax]

These things are always useful in the right scenario!

[beastie]

sectec can you pm the link as i find this quite interesting. good post mate

[Rich H]

SS227,

I must correct you -

It is possible to record:

Web browsing activity: record every website visited, the time of day a site was visited, the total number of visits to a site, and the types of searches completed.

Email programs and Web-based email: Outlook, Outlook Express, Myspace, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL Webmail, etc. It shows whether email was sent or received, who sent it, who received it, the date and time an email was sent or received, the subject, the contents, and any attachments

Chat / Instant Messaging programs: AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. It records the date, start time, end time, participants, and entire contents of chats and instant message conversations.

Screenshots: It can take screenshots based on alert words (when specific words are viewed or typed). You can also take screenshots of specific programs at specified intervals. All screenshots are saved chronologically so you can view them whenever you wish.

Keystrokes: A key logger records every keystroke, what application was used, what was typed, and who typed it. You can access all usernames and passwords, all letters typed, and every spreadsheet formula. Key strokes are saved and organized by date, time, and by what program / application was used. The key logger also has a unique ability to auto-format what was typed into a human-readable format, removing the extra "backspaces" and "deletes".

It runs completely invisibly without alerting a user that their computer is being monitored. This means you can use it in a variety of ways, depending upon your monitoring needs.

If you need to discreetly monitor computer activities, you can do so because it is completely invisible - no trace of the software appears in the Registry, the Process List, the System Tray, the Task Manager, on the Desktop, or in Add/Remove Programs. There aren't even visible files that can be seen.

It is not disrupted by any known firewall software and hardware so that it runs without raising any red flags. All anti-spyware and anti-virus software applications currently available can't see that it is running.

It offers industrial grade invisibility combined with the ability of remote monitoring (meaning you don't have to physically access the computer you are monitoring in order to view what's been recorded) to guarantee that you can keep an eye on things without interfering with day-to-day computer activities.


Rich H

[mts]

Spot on Rich.

I would like to add that there are questions as to the legality of the above and this should be checked carefully prior to embarking on such shenanigans :-)

HP was in hot water in 2006 for sending emails that track details about who opens them, when and if they're forwarded.

m

[Rich H]

The legal issue is 'bypassed' due to the seller believing the programme's use will be on a pc owned by the programme installer. That being for instance, monitoring the online activities of your children for example on a computer you own.

As far as HP is concerned, I couldn't comment on the exact incident in question but hot water is all that they would get in and nothing else. It is not illegal to track emails sent by yourself. I do it all the time.


Rich H

[mts]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich H The legal issue is 'bypassed' due to the seller believing the programme's use will be on a pc owned by the programme installer. That being for instance, monitoring the online activities of your children for example on a computer you own. As far as HP is concerned, I couldn't comment on the exact incident in question but hot water is all that they would get in and nothing else. It is not illegal to track emails sent by yourself. I do it all the time. Rich H

Thanks Rich

I was referring to all the examples given not only the email tracking.

Re: HP, an interesting read: HP 'routinely' uses email tracking • The Register

Thanks again for your input.

m

[rupert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by beastie sectec can you pm the link as i find this quite interesting. good post mate

I'd be interested in that link also.

[Mrburns]

Tracking network traffic and email has been going on from the dawn of time. The only way to secure transmit is to encrypt the data you send.

The a good method is to you PGP which is excellent for email security. There is a whole bunch of "spy" software out there which will not trigger a anti virus alert If they have been installed with admin privileges on the system.

However its not true to say these programs are not detectable. You have to know what your looking for and its not info I would publish on a public forum.