Why the Need for Internet Monitoring?
There are many dangers that a company might face on a day to day basis and while some of these can be mitigated by enacting effective policies, this will only help up to a certain extent. Consider the Web for a moment; it’s a popular attack vector that’s been used by malicious hackers for quite a while now, used to spread malware be it via botnets, spyware or scareware. Security best practices suggest instructing users to only visit websites that are reputable in order to avoid such infections; however, even if your users were to religiously follow these guidelines, an element of risk still remains.
For most attacks a hacker would need to lure his victim to a malicious website, so if we educate our users to recognize and avoid such websites the attacker would be thwarted, but not always. Sometimes malicious hackers do not actually depend on luring victims, but rather they try to go to victims directly and they do this by exploiting Internet advertising. One such occurrence happened recently and was reported by the BBC where attackers used Spotify advertisements to expose victims to scareware.
Such attacks are not limited to free applications; any website that runs advertisements can be exploited in such an attack. Luckily, these attacks tend to be quickly detected by the organization running the advertisement and shut down; however, until this happens there is always the possibility that people have been affected, which is what happened in the case involving Spotify, where the malicious advertisement targeted an application used by approximately ten million users.
In order for anyone to protect themselves from such attacks an internet monitoring solution and an antivirus are the only effective modes of protection. Internet monitoring solutions can scan your web traffic for known attacks and can also scan sent files for viruses, effectively stopping such an attack from happening. For additional security an effective patch management strategy can also be of help as in many cases these attacks will also exploit vulnerabilities in the operating system and web browser used.
Not only does internet monitoring keep users safe, but it also helps people stay on task. Overall, no company should be without a strategy regarding internet monitoring. There’s nothing to lose by implementing a system for it.
Today, security issues triumphed over privacy. Take for instance in airports, security officers are allowed to frisk and check your body (from head to toe) and your baggage for the sake of security, neverminding your privacy at all.
Internet monitoring is also the same with this setting. The only difference is it’s not personal or physical.
We should adhere to Internet monitoring for the sake of our and everyone’s security.
If you are mobile, Internet monitoring is a BIG NO NO. Aside from it can track your visited websites and online activity, this system can also track where you are. This is scary. Where’s our privacy going?
Companies, telcos, and mobile phone carriers should list the privacy implications of their terms of service. Privacy agreements, non-disclosure agreements, and the likes, should be served to consumers.
Hi Bob,
The Internet monitoring subject changes depending on the context of who is doing the monitoring and for what purpose.
This article is intended to address a company monitoring its Internet activity for security purposes. It is recommended that a company would do its own monitoring and not have external companies such as the teleco company doing the monitoring for it.
The intention primarily shouldn’t be to spy on your employees and intrude on their privacy but rather to ensure the safety of the company’s infrastructure. I know most companies will not resist the temptation and use such a system to monitor what an employee is browsing online; however, as it stands right now, provided they advise their employees, they can do that freely in the US. Other countries have other rules in that regard.
That being said, a work environment is definitely not a place where anyone should expect privacy regarding their online activity. So personally I do not believe that anyone can expect their company to put itself at risk and not do any Internet monitoring for privacy’s sake. Don’t get me wrong I am not claiming that privacy is not important, it’s just that I believe there is a distinction between monitoring and spying.