Remote workers using ‘mouse-mover’ technology are getting caught

According to a report from Bloomberg based on “disclosures filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority,” last month, Wells Fargo fired “more than a dozen employees” after an investigation revealed they were using devices or apps to simulate productivity on their computers. What’s not known is how over a dozen staffers had jobs where their productivity could be measured by mouse movements.

The FINRA disclosures did not reveal whether the terminated employees were caught using the tools while working remotely, according to Bloomberg, but they were all part of Wells Fargo’s “wealth- and investment-management unit.”

The devices and software in question have existed for years but skyrocketed in popularity during the pandemic when many employees suddenly found themselves working from home without any in-person supervision. Readily available online, the devices and apps are frequently referred to as “mouse movers” or “mouse jigglers” because they can autonomously move a computer’s cursor or trigger phantom keyboard entries without any human intervention.

Many companies rely on software to monitor these inputs as a way to ensure that remote employees are actually at their computers and being productive, and as remote working has continued after the pandemic, these monitoring tools have grown more sophisticated with the ability to now spot the patterns, however random they may seem, that a “mouse jiggler” is in use.

It’s a cat-and-mouse game (no pun intended) that’s going to continue to evolve as both “mouse jigglers” and the detection tools improve. There may never be a clear winner, but as the popularity of working remotely continues to grow, a better approach will be for companies to simply redefine how they measure productivity for employees outside of the office.