Although it may seem like you are infringing on basic rights when you block certain websites and categories on your business network, in reality it’s simply encouraging your employees to stay on track when they otherwise may get distracted. Not only are you increasing productivity, you’re decreasing security risks as well. When you don’t constrict your employees’ Internet use in some way, avoidable situations happen. Here are a few consequences that may happen if you allow your employees full reign of the Web.

Stolen Data

Do you know what kind of emails your employees are opening at work? If you don’t restrict their Internet use, they could be opening absolutely any email on their computers. While this is not usually a problem, a single misjudgment on the validity of an email can infect your entire network with a virus or other cyber threat. From there, data can be lost or stolen without anyone even knowing they did something wrong.

Bandwidth Sucking

If your employees are allowed to go anywhere, it’s likely they’ll visit streaming media websites like YouTube on occasion. Sites like these are incredibly bandwidth intensive, and will suck up what little a small business usually has. Streaming these services means that the rest of the office will suffer for it when they’re browsing regular websites or downloading important documents from emails or websites.

Liability

Did you know over a quarter of Fortune 500 companies have been accused of sexual harassment from chain emails that are sent around the office? Usually this material is not sent maliciously, but with lightheartedness. However, intention won’t hold up in court, especially now that a company can take the hit for an employee that hits the ‘forward’ button.

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