Recently in the news we heard about a government agency being infected with malware because one of its employees 
watched porn on his work computer. This mishap could have been avoided if only the organization had a Web Filter in place.
Unfortunately, it was discovered that this employee had been visiting thousands of porn sites, as well as being guilty of downloading images onto an unauthorized thumb drive. This type of behavior is a potential nightmare for any organization. But it’s important to learn from this and know that this could have been prevented if a web filter had been in place. Your employees’ shouldn’t be able to access unauthorized sites like this in the first place.
The Inspector General, who wrote a report on the incident, had some rather obvious recommendations. For starters, he recommended “a strong blacklist policy.” He also recommended regularly checking the web history of employees’ computers to make sure they aren’t visiting websites that could put the agency at risk again.
It’s advice that every company, regardless of size, should be heeding. While you would like to think that employees at small companies are more bought into the mission, it doesn’t mean they aren’t doing foolish things on your computers.
Seems like every week we hear a story blaming employees for being lax about security. They have bad passwords or they fall for phishing scams. They do all kinds of things that compromise your company’s security position, but here’s the thing. You shouldn’t be blaming only your employees, when they are using the systems and policies you’ve put in place.
It is easy for us to blame the user, but as a business owner it is also your responsibility to implement safeguards that will ensure that employees cannot access potentially harmful sites that could end up infecting your network.
This can be easily prevented by simply implementing a web filter! By doing so you are protecting your valuable business assets. Your company assets shouldn’t be at risk because one of your employees was poking around questionable websites that exposed your network to the dangers of malware.
You should also consider some basic training to lay the groundwork for what’s acceptable at work. While it might seem like common sense, and it often is, people don’t always behave sensibly. That said, you also have to be careful of being overly rigid when writing the rules of what’s acceptable. For example, some companies have blocked social media when the fact is a lot of business gets conducted on these sites.
In the end, it’s your business and you need to ensure that it’s safe. If you’re allowing employees to explore the internet without any kind of filtering tools, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to a host of malware. While you can blame the employees for not being smart about the sites they visit, in the end it all comes down to you and putting the tools and training in place to make sure they don’t do that.
Miller, Ron. ” For Goodness’ Sake, Get a Web Filter”. TechCrunch October 2018
As a rule, we implement internet security filtering for all of our “managed clients.” This service has the potential to stop most ransomware in its tracks, by blocking their ability to contact their command and control server. We consider this to be as critical a part of your overall security as antivirus protection.
Whether you are in the market for a managed service provider or looking into adding a web filter to your existing network – we can help. We can have one of our professional network engineers evaluate your needs, and identify any areas that can be improved.
Email us at [email protected] or give us a call at 732.780.8615 to get more information, or to schedule an appointment with one of our trained professionals.