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| Psssst...is someone looking over your shoulder? | |
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So it's your lunchtime...you've worked hard all morning and you just want to kick back for half an hour and watch some vids on YouTube. You go to log on, only to find that you're no longer able to access it because it's now a banned site as it's not work related. Annoyed?
Or perhaps you get an email from your boss telling you that your web activity has been monitored and that you seem to be visiting a lot of sites featuring Angelina Jolie, which as you work as an estate agent, can't really be explained, so you're to stop. Pronto. Embarrassed or outraged at this infringement of your surfing activity?
On the other side of the fence, the argument for restricting Internet access at work can seem equally justified. Why should you be paying employees to place their on-line weekly shopping order? When at work, shouldn't your employees be doing just that...working?
This common situation is actually easy to solve - Internet access can be restricted to certain hours of the day, say between 12 and 2pm, with minimum fuss and a quick on -site visit from a qualified engineer (contact us for more information) but there are actually far more important arguments for limiting Internet access in the workplace.
Undoubtedly, for many of us, the Internet is actually a helpful business tool, but it gets decidedly dodgy when you're downloading software to enable you to play games or listen to music on the work system. Let's suppose during a quiet five minutes you enter a games site for a little on-line R&R. A message flashes up that says in order to play the game, you need to download an item of software. You click yes to the down load and wait patiently for the game to begin....well it just did; you just agreed to install malware; which put simply, is like drilling a access hole into your entire system.
Blissfully unaware, you play your game, log off and forget about it. Next, you go to your on-line bank account to pay your gas bill you forgot to do at lunch...only the malware is now logging every detail you type and sending it to an undesirable someone who is poised to empty your account. You log off and return back to your work...and now everything you type - critical business sensitive information - is being logged. Scary and potentially enough to shut a business down.
It gets worse. Inadvertently letting one of these nasties in is like having a gatecrasher at a house party; they'll call a friend. Once you have one type of malware, more will be on the way.
Let's introduce you to spyware, who watches the Internet sites you visit and then sends you 'helpful' pop ups of sites it thinks are relevant to you. It's irritating enough having endless pop ups, but it can also redirect your home page and hijack your search engine. It's equally possible for it to act as a mail relay for people sending spam; essentially everything that is going to slow down your computer system until it's totally stuffed with rubbish and grinds to a halt. Bearing in mind that your system is linked with everyone else's in the office...a total office meltdown is looming.
The trouble is, the sites seem totally innocuous. There is very little way of knowing that they are about to corrupt your work IT systems, dodging past firewalls and gleefully setting up home on your hard-drive - and that's why the simple solution is prevention being better than cure. Just as you wouldn't leave your front door wide open to let just anyone walk in off the street, restricting Internet access in the work place isn't about being a spoilsport, it's about business protection...
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