How does my company get emails I send from my private business account?

Question

I work from a home office as a contractor. Another company is interested in hiring me and they are a competitor of the company I am currently contracted with. I was sending them emails from my personal email account that has nothing to do withthe company I am working for. I got a call from the CEO of the company asking about the email I sent and why I am unhappy with them. I asked how he knew about the email and he said that he has a filter that captures all emails going to this company. This sounds like this is not legal, I was not using his companies email I was using my personal company email. How did he get it ?

I am not logged into the company domain... I am on the other side of the country from the company (Fla. -> Cal.)
I did use my personal PC not my company PC. --- And within 10 minutes after sending the email I was called and my email was read back to me! --- I will investigate this "key logger" and if so I will see what I can do about it. That cannot be legal. This PC belongs to my personal company.

Answer 1

uhum interesting! There are several possibilities here. Let's start with the most likely ones:
1 - If you're emailing while logged into your company's domain from home it is actually not hard for your company to track your online activity. There are tools out there designed for that.
2 - If you were not logged into your company's network but you were in the past there is always the possibility of password theft and that someone is actually monitoring your personal e-mail account by logging into it.
3 - The possibility of a keylogger installed on your physical computer. There are keyloggers out there, software that can record everything you type and also e-mail its data file every hour or even every 15 minutes to a designated recipient. So if a tool like that is installed in your system the one that monitors it can actually have access to everything you type. More sophisticated keyloggers can also e-mail, along with the data file, screen shots of the sites you've visited, videos you've seen and even e-mails/pages you've read.

Good Luck,

- Fausto
SF IT Consultant

Answer 2

If you used the company's computer or connected to the internet by logging into the company's internet browser then the company can track what you do. Any information sent through the company is tracked and stored with their servers.

Answer 3

1. Your CEO is bluffing.
The competitor has squealed on you !
2. The messages you sent are stored in
OE/ outlook & can be retrieved. from the computer.
even if you have deleted them and cleared
the deleted files folder !
3 If you had used Yahoomail/Hotmail, it is not
possible. I feel.