WEB SURFING IS COSTING YOU $$$$$

Web surfing during work hours is costing you thousands of dollars!

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The majority of managers and owners don’t put as much emphasis on Website content filtering as they should.  I have worked on thousands of small business owner’s computer networks in South Texas and discovered that 8 out of 10 business owners feel monitoring employee web surfing is a small issue in their daily operations.  Consequently, they find web content filtering unnecessary and sometimes harsh or too strict.  When I ask these business owners, “What if you knew your company information or a company process was leaking and losing you thousands of dollars?  You’d jump on this and fix at once, wouldn't you?”

Work time is Work time – That’s the same choice you need to make when it comes to filtering web surfing.  Web surfing at work is costing you money and compounding your work flow inefficiencies.

My employees would never do such a thing - Most business owners would be shocked at how much time their employees spend internet surfing.  They become dumbfounded when they compute how many dollars are wasted on pure internet surfing during work hours.  Without an Internet content filtering device, you are allowing your employees to waste time surfing for things that has nothing to do with business.   The problem is most business owners don’t think 15-30 minutes of web surfing as wasted man hours.

Fortune 500 companies spend millions on ways to eliminate inefficiencies just to recoup 15-30 minutes of a work day.  Work time equals money and isn’t the reason you are in business, to make money?

How much time?

·         30 – 40% of Internet use in the workplace is not related to business (IDC Research)

·         Over 60% of all online purchases are made between 9AM and 5PM (Nielsens/NetRatings)

·         70% of all Internet porn traffic occurs during the 9-5 workday (SexTracker)

·         37% of workers say they surf the Web constantly while at work (Vault.com)

These are independent statistics, and they show that employees are spending a large amount of time looking at things on the Internet that they shouldn’t be.

Let’s say you have three employees, who earn an average of $20 per hour and work an 8-hour day Monday through Friday.  Let’s assume that, with a website content filtering device in place, you recover just 15 minutes of productive time a day from each employee.  Just 15 minutes a day each.  This is actually much less than one percent of a 40-hour work week. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? However, you just regained $300 in labor costs per month–you just saved $300 per month from being wasted! That’s $3,600 a year–compare that to the cost of a decent Web Filtering Hardware device installed at your business, and this is only one area in which a web filtering device saves you money!

The US in a recession? Online Gaming climbing at the Workplace.

Most business owners and managers think with tuff economic times and so little jobs available that most employees would most likely stay away from online gambling.  Sadly, the truth is despite of all the layoffs, online gambling is up and more prevalent at the workplace.  Most online gambling occurs during normal working business hours which I personally have seen numerous times throughout South Texas.

We recently picked up client who suspected his employees were goofing off (internet surfing) during normal working hours.  After some consultation discussions on how best to proceed, we installed a Web Filter device attached to their network to monitor activity.  After 3 weeks of web monitoring the results came back and the owner was beyond shocked.  His employees would spend on average, 2.27 hours on internet surfing and online gambling throughout an 8 hour work shift. 

Good old PORN wins every time!

Nevertheless, it might be hard to believe but the most common form of employee misuse of the Internet is to surf porn.  Throughout my job experiences over the years, porn is the leader in internet misuse.  From professors, bankers, white and blue collar staff, including your eager beaver 10 year old kid, porn is just too easy to find without some time of Web Filtering Device in place.  And for all business owners who are naive and think it’s only men who watch porn during working hours….you would be gravely mistaken.

Quick Fact- Did you know a co-worker seeing porn on another employees screen and becoming offended can result in legal action against the company?  You don’t have to be imaginative to consider the costs of such a lawsuit.

Why is our network slow?

On a regular basis we hear the complaints on why the network needs to be upgraded.  One complaint is usually that their infrastructure is outdated.  That’s an expensive assumption though and quite possibly incorrect.  In most cases we found that all that was needed was a set of tools to manage bandwidth usage. 

Quick Fact - “Almost 40% of enterprise network bandwidth is being consumed by recreational or non-business applications.”

Some employees download intensive content like music videos, streaming media and advertising banners that clog up network resources.  With a good Web Filtering device in place, you can quickly and easily identify bandwidth tie-ups and avoid network congestion.  You can see which computer is downloading the media, and then stop it by throttling the bandwidth just like you use the gas pedal on your car to speed up or slow down.  You can set a limit to the volume of bandwidth that an individual computer is allowed to download which keeps your network resources freed up for important work.

Monitoring your employees internet surfing is a tedious and cumbersome task.  As a business owner, I completely understand since we monitor our employee’s internet surfing too.  But because we feel it can be also used as a reward we do allow full access to the internet during certain parts of the day.  In the end, to get the most out of your workforce I encourage all companies whether you have 2 or 100 employees and invest in some type of internet filtering device not only to protect your business but to protect your employees from themselves.  Remove temptation and regain your work time, after all it’s your business.

Christopher Tagle is owner of TagleRock Technologies, LLC a computer IT outsourcing firm located in Mission with over 2000 clients around South Texas.  Visit them online at www.taglerock.com or via email info@taglerock.com

SECURE YOUR NETWORK

The Importance of hiring an IT Company to Secure your Network.

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It’s no secret that security vulnerabilities of private and public networks are real concerns that should be addressed quickly and assertively. Whether you have a Windows Server, Linux or regular desktop all computers and networks are susceptible to hacking.  Without proper training sensitive information stored on these devices are exposed to hackers and internal information theft. 

You can strengthen and enhance your company’s internal and perimeter network security by enforcing strict security checkpoints and enforcing protocols.  This can be accomplished by hiring a knowledgeable and reputable IT company that could arrest vulnerabilities and prevent future outbreaks.

The benefits of monitoring your company’s network.

An IT company will be able to manage and implement security practices against thousands of application level attacks.  In addition, they have the expertise in the following technologies that are vital and securing your network and sensitive information.

• ·         VPN
• ·         Firewall/VPN
• ·         Unified Threat Management
• ·         Remote Access
• ·         Intrusion Detection & Prevention
• ·         Endpoint Security

Furthermore, they will be able to safeguard your network against intrusions by implementing a perimeter gateway and applying security solutions such as IPS-1 and SmartDefense.  These intrusion prevention solutions provide precise, real-time attack mitigation, granular forensic analysis which warrants a secure network perimeter.

Intrusive (hacking) traffic will try and merge with legitimate traffic which is called spoofing.  These spoofing techniques bypass network passwords and security checkpoints if unfiltered.  If proper techniques are applied your IT Company can isolate intrusive traffic at your firewall.  Isolating intrusion track at the point of entry is called SmartDefense which maintains a high level of preemptive security.

Should I be worried about Denial of Service Attacks?

We here about DoS all the time and you should consider DoS a real threat.  A Denial of Service attack is an attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users. Just because a DoS has not hit your network does not mean it won’t and never will.  DoS attacks are a serious problem that do crash networks and if left unattended can result in network outages for days if not weeks.

In February of 2012 the notorious hacking group Anonymous, managed to take down the CIA, Mexico’s Mining Ministry and the State of Alabama’s Department of Homeland Security.

An IT company can deploy a proactive double firewall that filters unidentified traffic and data signatures before they hit your network that neutralize any such attacks and minimize downtime.  Banning IP’s, limiting the number of connections to your server are protocols that require certain hardware purchased such as Cisco, SonicWall or Barracuda’s NG firewalls.  The use of home grade equipment such as Netgear and Linksys will not allow for enterprise level security.

Prevention of Information Theft

The most compelling reason to hire an IT company is to prevent information theft and leakage.  Hackers are always on the prowl and ready to pounce on vulnerable networks in order to steal usernames and passwords.  Once your network is compromised hackers implement phishing techniques to dig deeper into your network with the malicious intent of stealing confidential company information such as; credit cards, customer list and trade secrets.

Despite hearing the horror stories of networks and servers being compromised it’s your own employees that allow hackers to sneak without being noticed.  In some cases it’s your own employees that engage in information theft because security policies and procedures were never implemented and enforced.

Too often businesses leave themselves wide open to information theft either because they choose to use home grade products in commercial environments or in extreme cases they choose to tackle security themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying home grade products don’t work in commercial environments but they can’t handle enterprise security policies and protocols. Furthermore, just because I know a little about cars does not mean I am going to break apart my engine and give it an overhaul.

Investing in the proper hardware is the right choice every time

If your current setup uses any of the following configurations below you are opening your doors to attacks and information theft.

·         Using Windows Home Edition in a commercial environment

·         Sharing files between local computers

·         Computers that have no password to login

·         Leaving your default password on your router

·         Using a free anti-virus solution in a commercial environment

When it comes to your company’s security you can hire a full time computer staff but you have no guarantee that your applicants really have enough experience to implement complicated security solutions.  For businesses with current IT staff then hiring an external IT company to handle security not only frees up resources but it allows your business to tap into your IT companies experience and knowledge base.

More importantly, when it comes to your network security you don’t want to hire a computer guy that is the jack-of-all-trades, you want to hire the expert in that trade.

TagleRock Technologies provides computer, network and server support for all of the RGV including Edinburg, McAllen, Harlingen, Brownsville and Rio Grande City.

Visit us online at www.taglerock.com