Avoid Bandwidth Overhaul and Security Risks This Holiday Season

With online sales expected to grow 15 percent this holiday season, consumers will be making purchases from a variety of devices and places — including work. While some employers have taken a liberal stance toward online shopping and personal internet use, the holiday shopping season threatens to strain bandwidth capacities to a point that would frustrate even the most lenient of employers. In some organizations, free-for-all bandwidth consumption might lead to an office network crash, hindering not only deal shoppers, but others in the office attempting to — shockingly enough — conduct actual company business. For example, the Huffington Post noted on Cyber Monday last year a peak of online activity at 11:25 a.m. EST, which falls well within the American workday in all U.S. time zones.

To combat potential internet outages and network slowdowns, companies can institute internet use policies that range in degree of leniency. At Windstream, we recommend that at a minimum your organization creates and enforces a policy that clarifies acceptable and unacceptable network use. Ultimately, you're in business to make money and your employees are there to contribute to your business goals, not to cash in on 50 percent-off bargains and free shipping offers. In addition to exhausting network resources, excessive internet use is a time drain that undercuts your company's bottom line.

Finally, an acceptable use policy protects your company in the event of an employee termination. When employers and employees are clear on the policies, both parties are better protected against misunderstandings and potential wrongful termination lawsuits.

Once your internet use policy is clearly outlined, there are several actions you can take to physically limit bandwidth use for nonbusiness-related activities. Consider installing a firewall to allow content filtering by the IT department. The firewall can be turned off and on as necessary. For example, restrictions could be lifted during the lunch hour, letting employees shop during the approved time window.

Another alternative is to allow your IT department to limit bandwidth allocation throughout the day. For example, if full availability is 20 MB, you may allocate 5 MB for browsing and personal use, protecting the remaining 15 MB for business use. Software solutions that provide real-time visibility into the traffic on your company's wide-area network (WAN) can enable your IT department to identify network congestion and adjust bandwidth allocations as necessary.

Along with bandwidth consumption concerns during the holidays, you must be aware of increased security threats. Increased web traffic on nonbusiness sites may amplify network vulnerability to malware and phishing scams, potentially jeopardizing data security.

With network security, as with bandwidth concerns, the recommended internet acceptable use policy remains critical. When employees visit sites not normally accessed during the workday, an organizational firewall message could pop up, alerting employees to potential dangers on the site. The message could read something like the following: "This site should be used for business purposes only. Please click to verify you have read and agree to our acceptable internet use policy."

A survey conducted by Business News Daily prior to Cyber Monday in 2012 revealed that 65 percent of employees shopping online fail to verify the security settings of the sites they peruse. By using a firewall verification system, HR and IT teams have records of the employee policy agreement, allowing disciplinary action if necessary.

Finally, the increasing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend provides even further opportunity for employees to use work time for online shopping excursions, especially if using their own equipment eliminates the guilt of using their employer's network. In fact, in 2012, according to Business News Daily, employees who operated under a BYOD policy spent an average of 12 hours while at work shopping for gifts during the holiday season. Formal internet use policies should include provisions for BYOD situations.

Whether or not you plan to allow online holiday shopping at your company, it pays to be prepared for the inevitable issues that come along with it. Implementing an internet use policy and having a savvy IT department go a long way toward ensuring your network remains functional and safe long after those bargain prices are gone.

Kelley McCasland is a senior consultant for enterprise product marketing at Windstream, a provider of IP-based voice and data, MPLS networking, data center, cloud computing, and managed hosting services.