White Papers for Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA)

Maximizing Security and Performance for Web Browsing: the Challenge for SMBs

Sophos

The 21st century has seen a rapid acceleration in the evolution of new threats to organizations, both in the velocity of change and the increased malice of intent. Five years ago most threats were viruses and worms designed primarily to disrupt networks and crash computers. In the last year or so there has been a significant change in motivation – and therefore method – towards deliberate, focused attacks, designed specifically to make money for the perpetrators.

Witness the recent escalation of spyware, which steals confidential information such as bank details and passwords, and can install programs that remotely control host computers. According to industry analyst IDC, spyware has climbed from fourth to second on a list of company security priorities, right behind email-borne viruses. The impact of this is huge. Infected computers are used to channel corporate information outside the business, saturating the network with “phone home” traffic that reports back to the spyware’s author, and overwhelming the desktop infrastructure. At the same time, productivity is being increasingly compromised by unmanaged web browsing. Employees are very often allowed to surf to wherever they want and download whatever they choose. In 2005, internet management software firm Burstek surveyed over 10,000 employees about their business and personal use and found that across all industries, workers spent around 20 percent of their internet time on personal business or for entertainment. For some employees, all internet use was purely personal with the biggest timewaster being online shopping, followed by entertainment sites, personal email, sports, chat rooms, job searches, and game playing. In addition, about 8 percent of the sites were assessed as posing potential legal liability to employers, such as sites that offer pornography or gambling.

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