Businesses Bracing For Security, Productivity Impact On Cyber Monday

Dell SonicWALL has released the findings of a survey about the anticipated impact to business as a result of Cyber Monday, the largest online shopping day of the year. The survey found that most employees are not able to recognise online threats against the corporate network and companies are most concerned that online shopping could open the network to potential new threat vectors. The survey also revealed that 63 percent of businesses expect a greater decrease in productivity due to Cyber Monday compared with last year. Dell SonicWALL solutions help companies drive employee productivity and network efficiency by eliminating the non-business-critical use of bandwidth and applications and by protecting the corporate network against threats.

As people return to work on Nov. 26 after the long Thanksgiving weekend and boot up their computers to take advantage of special offers from retailers, they’ll be taking part in a holiday tradition: Cyber Monday. Peak hours, when Internet bandwidth will be most impacted by online shopping, will occur in the afternoon. This year, social media is expected to add to the impact on corporate networks as shoppers visit Facebook and other social media outlets for information about Cyber Monday sales.

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The survey found 59 percent of businesses were more concerned about loss of employee productivity from online shopping on Cyber Monday than they were worried about potential network threats. Companies ranging in size from 500-999 employees anticipate the greatest impact on productivity, at 83 percent. Overall, 55 percent of businesses of all sizes predict their employees will spend two to four hours a week shopping online during the holiday buying season.

Business can protect itself from both cyber threats and assure productivity through next-generation firewalls that provide advanced features such as content filtering and application intelligence and control. This allows companies to determine what applications or websites employees can access on the corporate network.

Dell SonicWALL Next-Generation Firewalls with integrated URL/web filtering help organisations enforce their protection policies, drive productivity and block unproductive, inappropriate and illegal web content. This feature can keep businesses productive even while employees shop online, as it protects the corporate network from malicious attacks from phishing, cyber scams and threats from fraudulent emails, websites and malware. Application intelligence and control functionality also helps protect the corporate network from the internal harm employees render when they use bandwidth to shop online, share gift lists, watch videos and send holiday greetings.

In addition, the Dell SonicWALL email security platform deployed either as a service on the firewall or through a dedicated solution stops phishing and zombie attacks, spam, and viruses with more than 99 percent effectiveness. It uses multiple established, patented techniques including reputation checks that verify not only a message’s sender IP reputation, but also the reputation of its content, structure, links, images, and attachments.

Patrick Sweeney, Executive Director, Product Management, Dell SonicWALL, “Cyber Monday raises productivity issues and potentially opens corporate networks to possible threats. Our survey results show that businesses are more concerned with productivity and bandwidth issues than malicious attacks, but Dell SonicWALL has solutions to address risks and keep networks secure. In conjunction with our award-winning next-generation firewalls, the Dell SonicWALL Email Security solution is ideal for the 68 percent of businesses who fear their employees can’t correctly identify a spear phishing attack or other network threats.”

With solutions for security, systems management, business intelligence and application management software, Dell companies like KACE, SecureWorks, SonicWALL and Quest Software assist their customers in protecting their corporate networks, as well as their employees’ and clients’ personal information during the holidays and all year long.

Dell KACE offers advice on how systems management can help retailers securely manage both back-end processing tasks as well as provide controls at the point of sale to ensure systems are ready anytime while meeting compliance standards.