BMS's "Information Security Department" Has Spyware for Employee Laptops

(MoneyWatch)  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the case of Shalin Jhaveri -- the Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) management trainee arrested for allegedly stealing 45 gigabytes of confidential biologics info to start his own company in India -- is the fact that BMS has an Information Security Department which has forensic software to monitor anything that occurs on employee laptops.

• Download a copy of the Jhaveri complaint here.

The criminal complaint describes how BMS caught Jhaveri: They made an image of his laptop using forensic software and remotely monitored everything he did on it. Jhaveri eventually set up a Gmail account via which he sent BMS's confidential information to someone he believed would help him set up his company, "Cherish Bio Sciences," in India. Everything he did was being watched by BMS's spook unit.

The news is interesting in light of some drug company employees' recent paranoia about what their managers do and do not know about their computer use. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) recently installed new software on reps' laptops to give them remote access to company servers. The company denies the software monitors what reps do while they're out in the field all day.

The investigation was headed by the principal analyst for forensic security investigations in BMS's Information Security Department, according to the complaint. The department monitored Jhaveri's computer from Dec. 22 through Feb. 2, according to the complaint.

The monitoring included everything Jhaveri typed:

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