Approximately 20% of personal Internet use at work poses potential threats to the employer. Web access in the workplace can be a valuable business tool, but it also carries significant risks. Check out our presentation that discusses the risks associated with Web use and why monitoring and filtering helps mitigate those risks.
Do you have a good handle on all outbound connections from your network, and how do you know? Many times legitimate programs and applications downloaded are creating outbound connections without your knowledge or approval. This can cause a serious drain on an organization’s network resources. This exact scenario recently happened to a Wavecrest customer, and with the help of Wavecrest’s reports and technical support specialists, they were able to locate a program that was making 1,400+ outbound connections a day without their knowledge.
Many times, a program like this can be running in the background without the organization’s knowledge and is not necessarily identifiable in the process table. It can only be caught if an organization is monitoring outbound Web connections through reports such as the ones in Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products.
In this particular scenario, the customer became knowledgeable of these unauthorized outbound connections because there were a couple of users being locked out of their computers. To troubleshoot the issue, they along with Wavecrest technical support used the Authentication Manager in their CyBlock Proxy product to investigate. They found that the users’ computers were creating some outbound traffic that was not authenticating with the proper credentials, thus eventually locking the users out due to an authentication security setting the organization had on their Active Directory configuration. By using the Authentication Manager, Real-time Web Monitor and other reports, our technical support specialists were able to identify the file that was making these unauthorized outbound connections and remove it from the computers.
This scenario proves that it is important to be aware of what is going on in your network, and Wavecrest’s products can help IT administrators do that. There are several steps you can take to prevent and identify these types of problems in your network.
For more information on how Wavecrest’s products can help keep your network safe, we recommend you read our previous blog post on “Controlling Spyware” and “The Purpose of the IP Address Category.”
Note: The program in question that is addressed in this post is the Akamai NetSession Interface. It was hitting cn1.redswoosh.akadns.net and cn2.redswoosh.akadns.net 1400+ times a day. The program was located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Akamai\AdminTool.exe. To remove the program with Wavecrest’s help, the customer:
Remember: Our technical support specialists are here to help. If you ever need help with your product configuration or see something unusual in a report or on the real-time monitor that you are unsure about, please feel free to contact Wavecrest technical support, and they will be happy to help you.
Technical Support Contact Information
Direct: 321-953-5351, ext. 4
Toll-Free: 877-442-9346 ext. 4
Email: support@wavecrest.net
It has always been important to know that your company’s resources are being used properly and to the best of their capability. Businesses want to ensure that their employees are being productive and not wasting the organization’s time and resources.
Internet access is one of those resources that can easily be abused, costing an organization time and money. Internet filtering and/or monitoring with one of Wavecrest’s Cyfin or CyBlock products can help preclude or drive down costs in at least four areas: productivity, bandwidth, legal liability and security.
Conclusion: Cost of a Wavecrest license is less than three tenths of one percent of the cost of lost productivity. A well-communicated Web-use policy, coupled with an effective monitoring product, greatly increases productivity in the workplace.
Reliable studies indicate that as much as 70% of a company’s bandwidth is being consumed by non-productive pursuits. Activities such as online video, audio streaming, downloading movies or MP3’s are especially damaging. It is quite clear that eliminating or significantly reducing bandwidth abuse can improve network performance and preclude or decelerate the need for organizations to support increased bandwidth use.
Web-related legal costs typically result from employees visiting pornography sites. Many studies show this to be a serious problem. In fact, according to research by Nielsen Online in October 2008, one quarter of employees who use the Internet visit porn sites during the workday. Hits to porn sites are higher during office hours than at any other time of day, according to M.J. McMahon, publisher of AVN Online magazine, which tracks the adult video industry.
This type of activity puts the employer at serious risk of being sued by other workers who are offended or upset by being exposed to pornographic images. Such suits usually take the form of sexual harassment or hostile workplace litigation and can be very costly in terms of damage to reputation as well as legal costs.
Studies show that approximately twenty percent of personal use of the Internet by employees involves activities that pose potential threats to employer network security. Examples include file sharing, the use of malicious code, spyware and more. Like bandwidth abuse, the associated costs are difficult to quantify, but such activities can easily result in network disruptions or slowdowns and/or loss or compromise of proprietary data; these all come with a cost.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup games begin today and will run until July 11. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a research firm that deals with lost workplace productivity, ranks the World Cup as one of the biggest time wasters in the workplace worldwide. And it’s not just time that World Cup viewers will suck up in the workplace. Bandwidth consumption will also increase with the availability of video streaming of the games.
While the World Cup ranks number 4 in the US as a top time waster behind March Madness, the Super Bowl and Fantasy Football, it will still cost American companies about $121.7 million in lost productivity. The British economy, however, is looking to lose about $7.36 billion in productivity, according to the British law firm Brabners Chaffe Street.
Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products and services help all types of organizations manage and control employee Web activity. Cyfin and CyBlock products do this by monitoring and/or filtering employees’ Web use and reporting on the activity by content categories, e.g., sports, social networking, games, and others. Of particular note, with regard to the World Cup, CyBlock products can be set up to block Web access by categories and by hour so employees can access sports sites on their lunch break or after hours. This approach can help sustain morale while minimizing lost productivity and bandwidth associated with the World Cup.
Sources:
https://blogs.reuters.com/shop-talk/2010/06/08/world-cup-is-no-march-madness-in-sapping-productivity/
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/blog/2010/06/world_cup_promises_some_kick_to_productivity_apps_aim_to_help.html
https://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060608/8worldcup.htm
Bandwidth consumption is an increasing concern for all organizations as bandwidth-intensive sites and video streaming become more popular. The table below offers several examples of the amount of bandwidth that different online activities consume.
| Activity or File | Size (in kb) |
| One hour of IM chatting with AOL | 10 |
| Send a one-page text email with Gmail | 150 |
| View five different articles in Wikipedia | 1,200 |
| Upload a 10MP JPEG photo in Flickr | 2,400 |
| Downloading a 3 minute song from iTunes | 5,600 |
| Watch a 5 minute YouTube video | 12,500 |
| Watch episode of “The Simpsons” | 25,000 |
| Listen to one hour of music on Pandora | 56,300 |
| Compressed version of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” | 800,000 |
As the table shows, many online activities that are probably not work related utilize a lot of bandwidth. The last thing any organization needs is network latency or slowdowns due to non-work related online activity.
To mitigate this problem, CyBlock and Cyfin provide IT with the information needed to determine 1) if the bandwidth consumption is work related and 2) if any measures need to be taken to reduce the amount of consumption. Both products provide quantified data (via Web-use reports) that can help IT personnel keep track of network (bandwidth) utilization by users as well as by type of usage (appropriate or not so appropriate).
The Dashboard is the easiest way to get a quick view of bandwidth usage. You can quickly find the top bandwidth consumers by users, groups, categories or sites. You can also check when spikes in bandwidth activity occur.
The reports below can also be used to monitor bandwidth usage by users and identify potentially troublesome sites.
These reports can help you anticipate overload possibilities and the need (or lack of need) to purchase additional capacity. If abuse can be detected and brought under control, the cost of additional capacity may be avoided.
By monitoring and using the reports listed above, you can:
It’s baaaacccccckkkkkk! Happens every year. March Madness, that is. Everybody loves it. (Well, almost everybody.)
The excitement! The fun! The astounding fast breaks, slam dunks and three-pointers! And oh yes, watching it all unfold on your office computer.
Who could not like it? Well, for openers, the overworked folks who have to worry about workforce productivity, bandwidth costs, security issues and legal risks.
Here’s just one of many worrisome predictions, “FIRST WEEK OF TOURNEY COULD COST $1.8 BILLION.” It comes from the Challenger March Madness Report. The report also states, “The men’s college basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, marks the arrival of several other annual rituals: employee-organized office pools, a potential dip in productivity and a marked decline in Internet speed, as workers soak up bandwidth watching live streaming broadcasts of the tournament games during office hours.”
Not exactly good news for businesses and government agencies during this time of troublesome economic conditions and serious budget worries.
Maybe it’s time to revisit your AUP and rebrief your workers on the negative impact their fun could have on the organization and ultimately on their own job security. And if your organization doesn’t already have a robust Internet usage management solution in place, it may just be time to look into it seriously.
Wavecrest’s Control List includes CBSSports.com and NCAA.com under the Sports category, and for those using Cyfin, access to these sites will be monitored under Sports. If you want to only block and/or monitor the live video, you can create a custom category to block and/or monitor www.ncaasports.com/mmod/player.
According to Nielsen’s “VideoCensus,” online video viewing is up this year compared to last. Total video streaming was up 31.4%, and viewers spent an average of about 3.5 hours watching online video in July. This is an increase of 42.2% from 2008. The most popular video Web site was YouTube with over 7 billion streams in July 2009. A simple 5 minute video on YouTube uses 12,500 kilobytes in bandwidth.
Online video viewing often happens in the workplace where users have access to a faster Internet connection. This can cause network slowdowns or latency in the workplace if abused.
The below Cyfin and CyBlock reports can be used to track bandwidth usage by users and identify potentially troublesome sites. These reports can help you anticipate overload possibilities and the need (or lack of need) to purchase additional capacity. If abuse can be detected and brought under control, the cost of additional capacity may be avoided.
Bandwidth is a main concern for many businesses during this March Madness season. Many must deal with employees using company resources to enter online office pools, blog about the top seeds, and watch live streaming games that take place throughout March and early April.
In fact, CBSsports.com is expecting even more viewers online this year. They expect the number of unique viewers for March Madness on Demand, to rise 50% to 7.2 million viewers. With the massive number of sports Web sites and streaming games available, companies can expect to see a considerable drain on employee productivity and network bandwidth during the NCAA Tournament.
While you may or may not allow your employees to follow the games at work, you will want to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with your network. Wavecrest Computing offers Internet filtering by category or site, white list filtering, real-time web monitoring and detailed Web-use reports on a particular category or site and bandwidth usage. Some reports you can use to monitor bandwidth or access to sports sites are:
Source: https://www.marketingshift.com/2009/3/cbs-expects-7-millon-online.cfm
New versions of Wavecrest Computing’s CyBlock and Cyfin Internet filtering and monitoring software were recently released. Below is a list of some of the enhancements included in these versions.
For full release notes on the products, please visit the forum at https://forum.wavecrest.net/index.php. Current customers can download the latest release from their product by going to the Administration – Product Update screen.
The start of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games are right around the corner, and this year, NBC plans to stream 2,200 hours of live events on NBCOlympics.com. This may cause several network problems and productivity losses for businesses. To give you an idea of how much bandwidth a video can eat up, an episode of “The Simpsons” uses about 25,000 kb. This can cause major problems when you multiply that by several employees at one time.
Whether you’re concerned about productivity, bandwidth or both, your CyBlock or Cyfin application can be used to help you filter and/or track Web access the NBC Olympics site. The site https://www.nbcolympics.com is included in the category Sports but can also be filtered or monitored separately by placing it in a custom category if you don’t want to block the entire Sports category. Or, you can choose to just block video from the Web site by placing the URL https://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html in a custom category. Dont’ forget that you can also use the hourly blocking option if you want to allow employees access to the site during lunch and after hours.
To use custom categories, simply go to Advanced Settings – Category Setup – Edit URLs. Simply select the custom category you’d like to use, and type in the URL(s) you’d like to filter or monitor. For Cyfin users and those that decide to just monitor Web use of NBCOlympics.com, you can run a Category Audit Report on the Custom Category that you created to track that site.