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.
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Are Some Web Domains More Dangerous Than Others?
The simple answer is “yes.”
A recent report published by McAfee showed that specific country domains and some generic domains are more dangerous than others. The most dangerous country domain is Hong Kong (.hk) with 19.2% of sites posing a security threat to visitors. Second to Hong Kong was China (.cn) with just over 11% of sites found to pose a security threat. The most dangerous generic domain is .info with 11.8% of sites posing a security threat, while government sites (.gov) still remain the safest domains.
The report also revealed that security threats from surfing the Web have increased 41.5% over 2007. So then the question becomes, “how can I protect my Internet users from accessing these sites that are prone to harboring spyware, adware, viruses, etc.?”
There are several steps you can take to help protect your network from a Web-use management perspective.
- If you have CyBlock, you can block access to those domains that are the most dangerous by using the wild card option in a custom category. Assuming that access to these domains in your workplace is not needed for the majority of Internet users, then simply blocking the domains is a good way to keep users from accessing them on purpose or on accident. Should a user ever have a need to access a legitimate site with that domain, then it can simply be added to an allow list in either a custom category or one of the other 69 predefined Wavecrest categories that you allow.
- If you are using Cyfin, while you can’t block sites with a particular domain, you can still track access to them by using a custom category and running a report against that category to see if there is any activity in those domains.
- Also be sure to monitor and/or block the existing Spyware/Malicious, Phishing/Fraud, Public Proxy, and Hacking categories to help protect your network.
- Finally, the most important step you can take to ensure that your Internet users are surfing safely is to make them aware of Web security threats and the type of sites that are more likely to harbor them.
Reminder: March Madness Begins Next Week
This is just a reminder that March Madness begins next week with the first game on Tuesday, March 18 and the first online games on Thursday, March 20. Experts estimate that more than 1.5 million employees will be watching the games from their desks and an overall potential $1.7 billion lost in productivity. And just like last year, NCAA On Demand is including the “boss button,” which brings up a fake spreadsheet to make it appear that employees are busy working.
Many businesses and schools are also concerned that the widespread viewing of the streaming video will slow or crash their computer networks. This is especially worrisome because for the first time this year all 63 tournament games will be available online, without online blackouts of games showing on local CBS TV stations.
CBSSports.com and NCAA.com, including NCAA On Demand, are included in the Wavecrest site-blocking list under Sports, 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 use one of Wavecrest’s custom categories to block and/or monitor www.ncaasports.com/mmod/player.