What can a IT admin see on a network?

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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Apparently work now has started to monitor people's internet habits and frequency, I know the sites i go to are work safe, forums, BBC, Fantasy Football, some shopping, nothing 18 cert. But I am wondering if someone can do a screenie at work to show me what the screen of where the user goes to look like. I am just curious as to if it list say the ocuk forums as 1 link or does it list every page i go to, with every URL stated.

Also, does it show and how if I am on MSN or IRC connection?
 
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Chances are they might have software installed that allows then to see whatever is on your screen and its probable that they can also take control of your pc over the network if they see you doing something naughty.

All dpends on how large the organisation and how tight they are about the security.

Did you not sign an agreement regarding PC/Internet use, if not check your contract.

MSN and IRC is something they probably can see as well.
 
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with the right software they can seen anything they want too. they can log all your activity's what you have open for how long etc. I've know at least one person get the sack due to this type of logging. he was on racing betting sites all day mind.

I even been 10th highest on the web browsing list in a company of 1500+
I just told them list the sites they thought irrelevant to my job that I had visited in work time, if not sod off
 
Wicksta said:
It's a bit like asking "What can you see out of your window". :D

It depends.
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Exactamundo.

There's a number of ways of doing it depending on the amount of sophistication you want eg proxy server with logging, security software on the client PC, shadowing citrix sessions. That's just off the top of my head.

Basically don't do anything dodgy and keep your fantasy football to lunchtimes. Job done.
 
as far as msn is concerned they can do packet insertion. so adding a warning message. but they cant easily read messages in real time.
 
Unless security are asked to look into your account then you should be ok. But if they are asked then they can see everything you have done. I work for a big American company and we can see everything people do. Some very naughty and they get the boot, so watch out.

BigBrother is watching :eek:
 
Way it was done at our old company was through a proxy server, which then gave a nice graphical breakdown of what sites you visited, how long you spent on them, how much you had cost the company, etc. MSN was blocked, but I believe that it has a certain header in the traffic which can be easily tracked as well.

To answer your other question, the basic logging will probably show every image load and every click as a separate entity, but a decent piece of software will analyse this for them and change it down to page visits. Thats what they are looking for really. It doesn't matter so much if you visited one page and stayed on it for 30 mins, as that could be seen as you just leaving it open. Where they get you is when you have had lots of page visits in a short space of time, which shows you haven't been doing anything BUT surfing for that time period.
 
It's often not as bad as people have made out to be honest. I mean the below:

Swordfish said:
Chances are they might have software installed that allows then to see whatever is on your screen
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I have never come accross this in a corporate environment. The most likely way they "monitor" is by using a proxy server that sits between client machines and the internet. This will be able to do various things such as block certain websites, cache urls etc, and also provide logs of what "people" go to what sites. I say people, it can be filtered in different ways using IP/hostnames/usernames.
Check your usgae policy that you will probably have signed on joining company.
 
TheKnat said:
It doesn't matter so much if you visited one page and stayed on it for 30 mins, as that could be seen as you just leaving it open. Where they get you is when you have had lots of page visits in a short space of time, which shows you haven't been doing anything BUT surfing for that time period.
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Yeah well said, I forgot to mention that.
 
Always assume the IT admin can see everything

I record everything from who printed what and how many copies. We have it setup so I can view any screen and I have a slideshow showing the screen of 4 to 16 PC's on my screen at once. Then it cycles though all PC's turned on. Randomly I glance at it. We also have a proxy that records all websites visited with lots of info.

The only people who have to worry with us are those that abuse the system. Printing the odd sheet or sending a few personal emails is fine. Printing 100+ pages of holiday photos is not. Going on ebay for 5mins as a break fine. Spending hours on a gaming website is not.
 
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We use a proxy to filter web access, it shows us a log of everything that goes through it, including a user name if i remember correctly.

Very easy to find gaming sites in the "Top 10 most accessed websites" log ;)
 
Pottsey said:
The only people who have to worry with us are those that abuse the system. Printing the odd sheet or sending a few personal emails is fine. Printing 100+ pages of holiday photos is not. Going on ebay for 5mins as a break fine. Spending hours on a gaming website is not.
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This is true.

Only a complete tool of an Admin would have a go at you for tiny little things. But unfortunately its the minority of people surfing a lot which ruin it for the rest who only wanted to look at pictures of Auntie Eileen's cats.

As has been said, at least one admin per company can access EVERYTHING you have. Thats internet useage, emails, documents, anything stored on your PC or even attached to it for a short period of time. Some people seem to really under estimate what exactly can be seen by someone in the know (storing a HR database in a plain SQL server isn't a good idea :D).
 
We generally don't pay to close attention to it unless a specific request comes from say a manager or director who wishes to find out how much time is being spent surfing/chatting by a particular employee etc, instead of working.

The more popular chat, auction sites, and the usual catergories are blocked anyway, as is IRC and torrent software.

We check router logs/proxy statistics every so often for conspicious traffic, but other than that not much else. I would say it's the fear of breaking the terms of employment that stops most from considering it.
 
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