COMPANY INTERNET MISUSE

Whether you're a one man band with only a PA or receptionist, or you own a small to medium sized multi employee Company, your staff usually has increasing access to the internet. They fulfil tasks ranging from research to e-mail communication and even company banking.

In many cases Company owners are unfamiliar with the internet in general and the level of access and type of usage is impossible to determine. With this in mind the tendency is to accept that misuse may occur without fully appreciating the actual financial impact this may be having upon their business.

When you conservatively relate this factor to a small business we can see that the effect of each employee (in a 5-employee company) wasting just 20 minutes a day on unauthorised Internet use, at just R200 an hour, is more than R80,000 in lost productivity a year.

These are wages paid for work not done. Can you afford to accept this?

This factor alone should be enough to alert any owner to the need to know what type of internet usage is taking place within a business. Here are a few others to reinforce that need:

Job searching - Prior to a sudden resignation, employees always utilise Company resources to job search and communicate with potential employers. This not only places an employer in a untenable management situation, but also opens the door for transfer of sensitive information to competitors.

Lost productivity - Employees frequently review eBay auctions, check sports scores, read titillating entertainment news and trade stocks, all when they should be fulfilling job tasks. Numerous studies place the cost of lost productivity resulting from improper Internet use, nationally, millions of Rands.

Unauthorized surfing - When employees spend company time surfing for entertainment or thrills, they invite spyware and adware onto the company system, leaving it open to third party.

Unauthorized downloads - Off-site downloads can contain viruses and malicious code that cause your system to crash.

Legal liability - Most employees surf inappropriate adult sites that, if enabled by management and witnessed by others, could constitute grounds for harassment claims. Or, employees using Company-provided Internet access could knowingly (or unknowingly) violate international copyright law, which could further expose the Company to liability.

E-mailing sensitive information - Whether it's malicious or not, the moment a sensitive document leaves the Company premises it is not protected in any way from unauthorised viewing or distribution. Employees do this frequently, they e-mail work home to themselves through Hotmail, Yahoo, G Mail etc, so they can work on the weekend, or in the case of a disgruntled employee they may pass this information on to competitors.

Malicious or dishonest employees - The malicious employee is a rare animal, but does exist and, can cause a whole lot more trouble than a careless worker. What is more common is the employee who uses company resources for private purposes, such as set up their own businesses, or to trade your sensitive information prior to leaving for another job in the same field. Once of the more common examples of this are estate agents who release property purchaser leads and property listing information to another agent or agency.

FAMILY & SPOUSAL MONITORING

Children typically now have far more opportunity to surf the internet and what's more worrying is that they usually are far more familiar with its inner workings than you are as a parent.

The recent problems surrounding the use of a cell phone chat program (Mixit) as a potential hunting ground for adults wishing to harm children was widely publicised. This is the type of situation where being too late is unacceptable.

Through the responsible use of our monitoring service, you will be able to periodically check your childs internet usage, and determine what parental action needs to take place, all without the child knowing that their privacy has been compromised. So many potentially disastrous situations can be avoided by the gentle use of accurate intelligence.

Spousal infidelity/dishonesty will also be visible through their internet usage. The intelligence gathered can be used to determine whether your fears are founded. Again, the knowledge gained gives you the power to control your own destiny.

What can be done to give you peace of mind?

With your permission we will covertly monitor any computer station in your home, office, or a company owned off site laptop, from a remote location for a period of one week, after which we will present you with a comprehensive evaluation report that includes the following:

• Websites Visited, records of all website URLs visited in Internet Explorer and Firefox with page title.
• Keystrokes in Most Languages, logging of every keystroke typed into ANY window, including passwords typed.
• Full Chat Conversations, recording of BOTH sides of chats / IMs in Google Talk, Yahoo IM, Windows Live and Paltalk
• Applications Executed, records of every application executed by the user including full path and username.
• File / Folder Changes, recording of the action and full path each time a file or folder changes.
• Screenshots, capture of full-size jpg pictures of the active window however often you wish.

This information will allow you to determine firstly, how your internet resources are being utilised, and secondly, what files are being accessed to highlight what actual work is being done in Company time.

In every business case we recommend that you implement a formal internet usage policy, so that should it become necessary to discipline an employee, you would not only have the signed usage policy, but also the hard evidence of misuse to back it up.

Should any illegal or unauthorised activities be uncovered, you will have the opportunity to manage the situation before it escalates.

To take an active step towards safeguarding your business or personal environments, submit your details through our contacts page, and we will call you discuss your specific requirements.