While the internet allows expanding business and streamlining work processes, it also acts as a gateway to potential dangers for enterprises. The entrepreneurs who underrate the potential dangers of unsupervised internet access at the workplace encounter awful outcomes. The internet use of an unmonitored employee on an unprotected network can corrupt the entire network; eradicate critical data, and ultimately devastate the company’s ability to conduct business. In this post, we are discussing the potential dangers lurking on the internet and their negative impacts on businesses.
Cyber Slacking
The act of using a company internet connection for non-work-related and personal purposes is termed as Cyber Slacking. Many employees use company time and technologies for using social networking sites, playing games, watching pornography, and doing online shopping. It negatively influences the motivation to work and ultimately brings down the productivity level of workers. In short, Cyber Slacking results in the waste of time, resources, and profits. Given are the statistics of employees’ non-work-related internet use.
- Around 30 to 40 percent of internet use at work is for personal or entertainment purposes, according to IDC research.
- The American companies bear an annual loss of $63 billion from internet misuse at the workplace, as reported by Websense Incorporation.
- One in five employees access inappropriate sites at work and 28 percent make gift purchases from their workplace.
Data Security Breaches
The data breach has developed as the biggest concern for the organizations worldwide affecting millions of people every year. Almost 90 percent of large scale businesses and 74 percent small scale companies had to compromise on their data in recent times. Nearly 60 percent of corporate data breaches are caused by employees. Not so surprisingly, most of the data breaches by employees are due to the negligence of the managing authority and lack of data security education. The discontented and scoundrel employees are also to be considered who most of the time are the members of IT having access to the company network, data center, and administrative accounts.
Moreover, your employees’ common habits can put company data at risk. About 60 percent of users who have access to company network use the same credentials as on non-company sites such as Facebook or Instagram. When the hackers make an effort to grab user’s social media passwords, they tactlessly get company’s login information as well. Whatsoever the scenario is, the employee negligence and lack of education about information security are to be blamed in majority of data security breaches.
Phishing Attacks
Phishing emails are more like undesirable spam emails but these are more hazardous. The main purpose of a phishing email is to steal the confidential information of the recipient. The hackers and online criminals use emails designed to impersonate legitimate and popular organizations and websites such as PayPal, Amazon, eBay, or banks. These emails contain links that direct recipients to bogus websites that bear a resemblance to legitimate sites. This makes email receivers feel safe to enter personal information like username, password and credit card information, or bank account numbers on these sites.
When it comes to businesses, the phishing emails persuade employees to submit the confidential information of the company to illegitimate sites putting the corporate data and entire network at risk. The phishing emails also make employees unintentionally inject malware into the system by clicking on an infected link on a website. Malware is a type of software designed to damage the computer system, eradicate data stored on the system, and interrupt the functionality of the infected system.
Though the perks of the internet for businesses are undeniable, unsupervised internet access can be damaging. It can have disastrous impacts on the productivity of the workforce providing them entertaining stuff and distracting them from work-related activities. The employees can use the company internet connections to submit confidential company information to illegitimate websites or to competitors via emails. All these are reasons to monitor and control internet access at the workplace.
How TheOneSpy Lets Employers Control Internet Access
Employers can take the support of TheOneSpy computer monitoring software to eliminate cyberslacking, boost employee productivity, and minimize data breaches. Once the software is installed on the employees’ Mac and Windows computer devices, the employer can monitor and control the internet use on these devices.
The Mac Spy Software and Windows Spy Software provide the most extensive support to businesses combating cyberslacking. This software helps to track the activities performed by the employees on the internet within and beyond working hours. You can trace how much time an employee spends doing work-related searches, watching YouTube videos, and updating personal social media profiles. In addition, you can get the internet browsing history of the monitored computer devices along with user-friendly statistics describing the time, duration, and frequency of visiting each Website.
The software not only allows employers to supervise employees’ internet use but also to control it. The employees can be restricted from using music and video streaming sites such as YouTube and SoundCloud, social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram, online shopping sites, pornography sites, and other inappropriate and unsolicited websites. In addition, the Website Blocking feature enables them to block all the distracting and un-required websites by putting URLs or keywords.
That
is not all, the employers can also spy on the emails received and send from the monitored computer device. Whatsoever the employees are communicating through emails, and with whomsoever, it can be tracked. You can know if an email transmitted through the monitored computer device is for a work-related purpose, personal purpose, or for a data breach. The content of the incoming and outgoing emails can be read, and the contact information of the sender and recipient can be viewed. Email monitoring assists you in preventing your workers from responding to phishing emails and submitting company information to illegitimate sites. It also notifies you if your discontented employees approach your competitors with wrongful intentions.
In addition to Windows and Mac Computer devices, TheOneSpy allows employers to track employees’ mobile phones and tablets running Android, iOS, and Blackberry OS.
