Every year consumers wait for very important dates for the sale of products or services: Black Friday and Cyber Monday . Furthermore, cyber criminals also eagerly await commemorative dates or big promotions to carry out different types of digital scams, creating threats to your company's data security.
In 2019, BlackFriday is scheduled for November 29th and Cyber Monday for December 2nd. Therefore, it is nothing new that many employees use the corporate environment to make purchases and other activities that do not correspond and have no connection with their roles in the company.
Therefore, in this article we cover a little about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. See how this date can harm your company, reducing employee productivity and putting your company's data and security at risk. Check out tips for managing these issues.
What is Black Friday?
The name, which in Portuguese means Black Friday , was a term created by retailers in the United States to name the annual sales action that takes place on the Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday, which is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of month of November in the United States.
The idea has been adopted by other countries such as Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Paraguay and Brazil (since 2010). On this date, many physical and especially virtual stores join the movement and lower the prices of their products, aiming to guarantee more profits, drive consumers and sales, in addition to generating loyal customers.
However, even though this date is very special for companies and consumers, with it also come numerous problems, from issues of company security to difficulties in keeping employee productivity high. It is known that on dates like this they tend to monitor websites, social networks and even virtual stores and the prices of products that interest them.
What is Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday, in literal translation, means cyber Monday. This term was created in 2005 to further boost online sales at the end of the year. The promotion takes place in November in online stores on the first Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.
Cyber Monday has been held in Brazil since 2012, with the participation of many online stores that offer huge discounts on sales made over the internet.
Promotional dates
Black Friday and Cyber Monday can harm your employees' productivity in a variety of ways, mainly through wasted time while researching products on the internet, as well as when making online purchases.
To prevent personal purchases from being made during working hours, the ideal is to talk to employees in the days leading up to these dates, explaining that the work environment is not the correct place for this type of activity, and recording the policy of use of the internet in the company , proving the professional's awareness of the rules for using the Internet, aiming for the appropriate use of technology resources.
If you have no problem providing time for your employees to access discounts, one idea is to use a system for managing internet access with timetable release, which allows for a balance between blocking and releasing the internet . For example, using a system you can allow access to shopping sites during the midday break and automatically block access to sites in this category at 1:30 pm.
How to maintain security?
For you, manager, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are reasons for great concern. Amid all this anxiety generated by the dates themselves, employees tend to use corporate networks to make purchases without worrying about security .
On the other hand, hackers and criminal groups know that this is a great opportunity for attacks, because attracted by promotions , users end up creating new security holes.
Between the data stored on servers and transmitted through corporate networks, everything needs to be secure and this protection can be threatened by a simple corrupted link, a malicious URL and even traps on fake offer pages.
Therefore, being aware of the security measures that are used and which ones should be implemented is essential to avoid problems and protect your company against virtual threats during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Here are some security tips to avoid virtual attacks on Black Friday and Cyber Monday:
Be careful with emails:
During the days leading up to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, advise employees , as the volume of Spam sent to emails increases significantly, and may even congest the email server. Most of these emails received are advertisements, however there may be files or attachments with malware and malicious content, if an employee clicks or opens it there is the possibility of causing serious data security problems in the company.
Keep your antivirus updated and use Firewall:
The antivirus, when updated correctly, can protect against many attacks and because of this it is of great importance that it is updated. Furthermore, it is necessary for employees to know that this antivirus should not be disconnected, as if this happens, they will leave the computer susceptible to attacks.
Use the protection of a firewall on the border with other untrusted networks, as it is a security feature that controls the flow of data on the network.
Guide employees:
Nothing better than good internal communication between you and your employees. It is very important to educate all members of your team about this event and the possibilities of existing attacks, including making it clear how high the rate of hacker attacks is at this time, which could reach an increase of 30% .
It is known that hackers tend to take advantage of dates such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday to carry out different virtual attacks, as at this time there is a significant increase in online shopping and this becomes a favorable time for the increase in scams.
Furthermore, when the company does not have a competent solution for blocking malware to preventively monitor these attacks, intrusions are generally only identified later, when the damage has already materialized and becomes incalculable .
Therefore, be careful and guide your employees so that they do not access “tempting promotions” during working hours and that they take care even when they are at home and when making purchases, so that they do not suffer any type of attack, scam or theft of personal and corporate data.
Use Lumiun to manage and control Internet access:
The advantages of an internet management system like Lumiun are many and go beyond the ease of implementing access rules and managing team productivity. Security and protection against threats on the internet are relevant factors, as they are focused on reducing the risk of data loss, avoiding access to harmful websites and problems with virus incidence, resulting in savings in relation to equipment maintenance costs.
Lumiun is easy to install, does not require large servers and can also be managed in a practical way through a control panel, meaning there is no need for advanced technical knowledge to implement and use the solution.
Check out the benefits of Lumiun for your company, get in touch and schedule a demonstration of the system!
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