These gadgets were flying off the shelves during the lockdown, as dishonest employees discovered the ideal tool to convince managers they were working from home. And now, a prestigious bank has let go over a dozen employees for neglecting their duties and utilizing “mouse movers.”
Following an investigation into allegations that its staff members were faking their productivity, Wells Fargo & Co. terminated over a dozen workers last month.
All of the employees were from the company’s wealth and investment management division. They received pink slips after the claims about keyboard activity simulation were verified.
Mouse-moving software has been around for a while, but its use really took off during the pandemic when many workers suddenly had to work from home without direct supervision. These easily obtained gadgets and applications are sometimes called “mouse jigglers” because they can move a computer’s cursor or produce phantom keyboard inputs without the need to be at your desk. Meanwhile, a company could be paying a worker who could be out golfing.
Gamers who didn’t want their sessions to time out were the first people to popularize the gadgets.
The Wells Fargo firings—which were made public through reports submitted to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority—left it unclear whether the workers were pretending to be actively working from home or in the office.
After an incident in 2016 exposed that staff were making up fake customer profiles to meet sales goals, the bank began to seek ways to enhance its operations. Due to this mouse-moving scandal, the bank may be facing another setback.
To verify that remote staff are logging into their computers and completing work assignments, many companies have been utilizing monitoring software. These monitoring techniques have improved over the years to the point where they can detect the use of a “mouse jiggler. No matter how random the jigglers are, the detection devices are detecting a telltale pattern.
