Amazon is reportedly preparing to monitor its remote workers’ activity via keyboard and mouse stroke logging.
According to Vice, citing an “internal document” obtained by Motherboard, the online retailer will track the activity of customer service staff, which are frequently teleworkers, in a bid to “stop rogue workers, imposters or hackers accessing customers’ data.” The doc also reportedly includes several examples of stolen customer data.
Vice noted that this key log system will not analyze specific employee communications, but will generate a profile based on the staffer’s “natural” keyboard and mouse movements in order to actively verify as to whether the same user is accessing the account.
Per the memo, “manual audits” by Amazon’s security team reportedly uncovered four instances where hackers accessed data, in addition to indicating a “high data exfiltration risk” due to at-home work policy. A bar chart within the document also noted that Amazon has faced the highest number of security incidents from workers in India (120), the Philippines (under 70) and the U.S. (nearly 40).
Vice noted that Amazon’s goal is to cut down on imposter activity to “zero cases by year” by 2022.
Reportedly, Amazon is facing “challenges” surrounding the policy, but is investigating more “privacy-aware” models for anonymously collecting the data.
