Is my computer being monitored at work?

Yes, your computer is being monitored at work. But don’t get too paranoid.

In 1940, it would be frowned upon to use the company typewriter to type personal letters. Then, monitoring meant a human hired to walk around the room and look over the shoulder of every typist.

In the 21st century, monitoring is electronic, but the rules have not changed: don’t mix business with home.

“Keeping personal media on company computers is a problem,” says IT expert Lucinda Higginbotham. “Computer giving critical warnings for space? Maybe it’s because of the thousands of vacation pictures stored on the company equipment.

“Just keep your personal and professional spaces separate. Using company resources for personal use is stealing,” she said.

Computer use requires monitoring for both intellectual and network security.

Personal laptops that aren’t managed by company IT could be vulnerable to hacking and viruses. They also could be used to take confidential data offsite.

“Large financial or government offices sometimes have port security in place, which means, if the computer isn’t a logged asset in the system, and it is plugged it into the wall or connected it to the wifi network, security systems would immediately shut off that port or block it,” Higginbotham said.

Downloading movies, pictures, large files takes up tremendous resources on a network, so bandwidth is monitored for use and security issues.

Using applications not safe for work also can involve IT. Unsecured internet storages apps pose a risk to confidential data. Many companies block these sites in-house, but using them at any time for company business, can put proprietary information at risk.

Music streaming eats up bandwidth. Large email sites can pose unusually high incidence of viruses.

In large government or high-security companies even personal cellphones can cause a problem.

“Companies that take security very seriously might set up certain things that might jam cell signals. The security risk here isn’t so much about using work time for personal calls, but more about the ability take pictures or videos of things inside the company and leak data out,” Higginbotham said.