Wells Fargo Employees Using ‘Mouse Movers’ Get Arrested and Fired

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 found they were using devices or applications to simulate productivity on their computers. What’s not clear is how more than a dozen employees held jobs where their productivity could be measured by mouse movements.

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

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

Many companies rely on software to monitor these inputs to ensure that remote employees are actually in front of their computers and being productive. And as remote working has continued post-pandemic, these monitoring tools have become more sophisticated with the ability to now detect entry. patterns, however random they may seem, indicating that a “mouse jiggler” is being used.

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