Child pornography is bad for business
Every company would like to believe they have employees with strong moral values who would not jeopardize the reputation of the business by browsing for pornography, or even worse, child pornography.
The truth of the matter is, not only are there employees that will do just that, but also others who might have access to machines in the facility, such as cleaning personnel, children of employees, etc.
Being in the computer service and repair business, we’ve seen it all. From computers at a church infected with viruses and malware that required cleanup (due to browsing malicious porn sites), to lawyers who asked us how they could browse adult sites without becoming infected, and one businessman who became infected numerous times and made no excuses for his behavior.
In most cases, businesses have been lax in implementing any sort of policy, written or actually enforced. Some feel it could never happen to them, that the risks are too small to invest the time and money and that putting systems in place will be costly or cumbersome. Even after an incident has occurred, such as an infected computer on a client’s network due to what appears to be browsing for pornography according to the history, the client will gladly pay for the repair or service, but not entertain the idea of putting protection into place to prevent it from happening again.
Imagine police searching your business computers…
Here’s a story that might have crossed your screen. A 26 year old man in Maryland plead guilty to producing child pornography, and he used the computer at the gas station he was employed at to view and download the porn to a thumb drive and hard drive. (examiner.com)
Here’s a story of a man who was arrested at a business after a tip lead to a search and turned up child pornography. (ninemsn.com.au)
An IT company turned in their client, a Florida real estate agent, after finding child pornography on the business computer he used. (winknews.com)
The above stories are just recent examples of how businesses can be brought into the spotlight due to indiscretion. Even if law enforcement is not involved, the mere act of browsing the websites that host this type of material is a waste of company resources, it endangers computers due to the large number of these sites that contain malicious software loaders.
Protect your business
- To ensure that your business does not show up in the morning news, there are a few things you can do that might help.
- Secure computers with passwords so that only authorized personnel can use them.
- Avoid placing computers in secluded areas when possible.
- Institute a written company policy that explicitly forbids illegal activities on business computers with defined consequences if discovered.
- Use anti-virus software which includes a browsing component with built-in filters for adult sites, such as Trend Micro.
- Consider a physical firewall or security appliance that provides filtering at the gateway.
If you would like to discuss how a firewall, filters or Trend Micro WFBS can help protect your business, please call us today at 864.990.4748.
We offer security, computer & network consultation, service, sales and support to Greenville and the Upstate of South Carolina. We are also partners with the biggest names in Security such as Symantec, Trend Micro, Cisco, WatchGuard, SonicWall, Zyxel and more.