Security And Determining Safe Computer Usage

Employers and data centers have a fine line to travel. How to keep employees utilizing their hardware for office productivity, and not spend time and resources in areas that have nothing to do with work and office responsibilities. There are many distractions an employee faces during working hours. Sites of entertainment, social networks, instant messaging, sports, gambling, gaming - the possibilities are endless. Statistics show over seventy five percent of employees have used Facebook during hours of employment. All it takes is a video with a malware payload behind it, or a shortened URL address to bring chaos and havoc to an entire network and workplace. With a lot of personal internet use during work hours, new policies have to be put into place to define what is safe and acceptable, and what goes past company policy.

One area of security correction begins with training. A CISSP boot camp satisfied the training requirements of employees and other in an organization where security awareness is needed. K Alliance training has courses such as this and many more, illuminating the knowledge set of any IT professional.

Providing a complete and unguarded free access opens far too many IT security risks. There is also the consideration of drains on networks and connections when everyone in the company is utilizing the Internet for reasons other than productivity. Imagine a major sporting event, including March Madness during the NCAA basketball tournaments, or the World Cup soccer matches. Lots of networks and employees keeping up with the action. Unfortunately, so are the cyber criminals. Between a drop in productivity and the open possibility of security breaches, it is a growing concern.

There are software tools that will monitor an employee’s time spent, including keystroke logging and sites visited by an employee. Once everyone knows their productivity is being monitored, the risks decrease as employees know they are being watched.

Even though employees are told adult sites are nto permissible, it still happens. Cyber criminals love these sites, as they are low in cost, they place very little security features, if any, in their sites, and the malicious links on these sites generate lots of ill-gotten gains for the conspirator. How prevalent is this practice? Neilsen Research discovered as high as thirty percent of the employees in the survey have watched an adult web site with employee hardware. They also found out approximately twenty million people viewed an adult web page from work on an average of eight times a month. Think of the damage if a malicious link was let loose in the workplace that didn’t have security measures strong enough to stop it from doing damage. This also applies to emails being sent and received with inappropriate not safe for work content attached to it. All it takes is a friend who does not realize their home system has been compromised by a replicating virus, reading the person’s entire address book, then sending the same malware email to everyone, including the addresses of employees. That employee opens the email, and network anarchy ensues. Does this happen? The American Management Association conducted a survey and discovered sixty percent of computer users acknowledged they sent adult filled emails from work. Those who viewed not safe for work content, one third.

A recent federal government report discovered the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) was not immune to this practice. Many employees had performed this practice, watching adult content online. A senior attorney was said to have viewed as much as the entire day watching adult materials at work. Imagine the SEC being compromised due to malware from unsecured practices, and the personal data that could have been lost, stolen, or damaged. No entity is immune. Even if a site does not contain explicit adult materials, it still hinders productivity.

Even sites including YouTube and other social news sites can contain shortened URL addresses that have the possibility to load malware. Training and monitoring, as a two pronged attack, will deter some of the activity, but in the end stronger measures will have to be taken, including an onsite certified information security expert.

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