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Social media use at work exploding, but beware alarmists

Jessica Stillman — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:01:43 +0000

It only takes a peek around the desktops of the average office today to see that social network use at work is way up. But by exactly how much is this growth impacting corporate networks? Firewall company Palo Alto Networks analyzes the traffic on its customers’ networks semi-annually to answer questions like this, and this week it released it’s latest findings, summarized in the infographic below.

The headline takeaway is that employees are shifting from being passive observers of social networks while at work to active participants, dramatically increasing their use of these networks (in fact, total social networking traffic more than tripled). But despite BusinessWeek claiming social-mad employees are hogging bandwidth, don’t be too alarmed about the increase in usage. All that posting and game playing only accounts for a total of about one percent of Internet bandwidth, and Palo Alto Networks is stressing that while some people are certainly slacking off, an increasing amount of social networking use is also for legitimate work purposes. File sharing is way up as well but also only accounts for about one percent of total network bandwidth.

“At first glance, the shifts in usage patterns may imply that there is a significant drain on productivity and a strain on the networking infrastructure, possibly jeopardizing other, more business critical, bandwidth sensitive applications. Clearly social networking applications are being used for both business and personal purposes, but the overall impact to the bandwidth infrastructure is small,” says the report. A more serious risk than wasting time or bandwidth may be threats to data security. The report suggests networks are harder to secure than many IT pros imagine.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user Franco Bouly.

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ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall: Free for a Day

Samuel Dean — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:21 +0000

I’ve written about ZoneAlarm’s firewall software before. Many Windows users want a full-featured firewall that goes beyond the default one in Windows, and ZoneAlarm Pro is one of the better choices. It’s also a good added step in a sound strategy to keep public Wi-Fi sessions secure. Here’s the good news: In celebration of the 15th year anniversary of ZoneAlarm’s firewall applications, you can download Zone Alarm Pro anytime today and until 6am PDT tomorrow at this link.

ZoneAlarm Pro normally costs $39.95 and has more complete features than most of the free firewalls, so this is a good opportunity.

The $39.95 price earns you a one-year subscription to services that go along with ZoneAlarm Pro. If you choose to subscribe after a year, the fee is $39.95 per year.

Under the hood in ZoneAlarm Pro, you get much more than just a basic firewall, which is part of why a subscription fee normally applies–for updates. You get anti-spyware, identity theft protection, and other security features that can complement your anti-virus software. If you don’t have a top-notch firewall, here is an award-winning, proven one with a long history, for free.

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Get Enterprise Level Security for your Personal Laptop

Scott Blitstein — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:00:31 +0000

As a Mobile Web Worker, my laptop is the lifeblood of my business and my primary means of communication and productivity. It’s critical that it not only stay secure and free from virus and malware infection, but it also has to run smoothly and allow me to focus on the work at hand.

That’s why I am so intrigued by the Yoggie Gatekeeper Card Pro, an ExpressCard mini-computer that offloads 13 security applications from the PC to a powerful Linux-based mini-server. It brings the security of a corporate network to the mobile worker.

With applications ranging from Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam to Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems, the Gatekeeper Card Pro replaces all of your installed security applications and promises Pentagon Level Protection without the resource drain of running them directly on your laptop.

Yoggie has received rave reviews for their existing solutions like the USB based Pico and the Gatekeeper Card Pro seems poised to continue on in that tradition.

The Gatekeeper Card Pro will begin shipping on June 15th with a retail price of $199 but can be pre-ordered now for $159 direct from the Yoggie Store. It comes with a 1 year subscription for updates with a $40 annual renewal charge. It is 32-bit XP and Vista Compatible.

Are you ready to give up your desktop security apps for a Yoggie solution?

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