Amazon Plans to Record Keystrokes for Customer Service Workers
- By Dawna M. Roberts
- Published: Aug 26, 2021
- Last Updated: Mar 18, 2022
According to a leaked internal memo, Amazon is considering monitoring keystrokes for all its customer service representatives.
What is Happening?
Sources claim that Amazon is suffering at the hands of its customer service team operating out of other countries. A leaked memo confirmed that the company is experiencing widespread data leak and illegal access of customer data by insiders. The online retail giant has resorted to the option of monitoring all keystrokes from customer service reps.
Motherboard first received the sensitive memo and published a report about Amazon’s choice to monitor reps’ keystrokes. Amazon was quoted as saying, “We have a security gap as we don’t have a reliable mechanism for verifying that users are who they claim they are.”
Amazon elaborated that the area of most concern is employees who are working from home in India and the Philippines. The majority of the “data exfiltration risk” comes from those staffers.
Threatpost explains more about the issue “Roommates of legitimate customer service reps curious to look up what famous people purchased from Amazon; hackers purchasing customer-service credentials; even the use of a USB Rubber Ducky to rapidly input keystrokes to gain access to systems, are all ways that attackers have abused Amazon data, according to the report.”
What is Being Done About the Problem?
Amazon is considering using BehavioSec, a company “which uses the aggregate data of a user’s mouse clicks and keystrokes to develop a profile of their typical behavior.” The tool monitors keystrokes, and then when the behavior of the primary individual changes, it identifies it as odd and alerts the client.
“We are considering an option that will include capturing all keystrokes, and with this functionality turned on, we may not be able to deploy the off-the-shelf solution,” Amazon commented.
Experts agree that the company may even be downplaying the issue that there is a good chance that the problem is much worse than stated in the memo.
Why is This Happening?
In an interview with Gaurav Banga, CEO of Balbix, Banga told Threatpost that the best security measure for any organization is employee managers who know who each employee is and what they are supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, the largely remote workforce has destroyed any control and security that was in place. Amazon is no exception.
“You can’t see who’s an insider and who’s an outsider,” Banga said. “So, how do you compensate for not knowing who your employees are?”
“He said keystroke monitoring is the kind of security that remote employees will have to get used to in the future.”
Because cybercriminals are so adept at finding ways into the organization, behavioral profiling will have to become the solution.
Threatpost explains, “Behavioral profiling is becoming increasingly important to be able to detect these threat actors, not just via user behaviors but anomalous patterns of behavior in connected devices.”
For example, “if a video-surveillance camera suddenly starts communicating with a malicious ransomware domain, that’s an obvious departure from regular behavior that should be investigated.”
Monitoring keystrokes is only the beginning. However, “This will be useful to detect devices that have already been compromised, particularly with many customer service agents now working from home with shared living quarters and poor physical security,” Threatpost shared.
Experts warn, however, that Amazon and other employers thinking about taking this drastic step should only monitor keystrokes and install behavioral profiling on company-owned devices, or they may open themselves up to lawsuits.
Some employees have balked at the coming security protocols. Cybersecurity professionals warn them “don’t use your work computer to do anything personal.”
Companies like Amazon have a lot at stake and must regain control over security practices, especially within their remote workforce.
