PC MONITORING
OSForensics
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Min requirements: Windows XP/Vista/7
File size: 35.8MB
If you want to know exactly what someone has been getting up to on a computer, OSForensics can tell you. The Recent Activity tool lets you see the files they’ve opened, file searches they’ve run, what they’ve downloaded, which USB devices they’ve connected, any websites they’ve visited, and more. You can even browse through the contents of the computer’s memory. Using the program is rather like going through someone’s bins - there is likely to be a lot of rubbish, but you’ll find some useful pieces of information in there. OSForensics isn’t simply a spying tool, however. It has plenty of other useful (and less creepy) applications. The Undelete tool will let you recover accidentally deleted files or folders. You can index different file types on the drive (such as emails, documents and images) and then search for files by name or content. The Mismatched File Search will scan your hard disk looking for items with an incorrect extension - an .exe file pretending to be a .jpg for example - which can be a good way of identifying possible malware. The software can scan the target system and list all the stored browser passwords and Windows logins - yours or someone else’s - and attempt to decrypt password-protected files. It can create images of hard disks and mount them, and test and erase removable drives, too. OSForensics is a very powerful tool (the Pro edition costs a whopping $499), but it is easy enough to use, and can be installed and run from a USB stick.
