Holiday Shopping While at Work

By Stephanie Jordan
in

Many Americans are cutting costs by shopping online for the holidays—no crowds, lower prices and fewer gas expenses. BorderWare is sending a reminder this month that since so many people will shop online while at work, enterprise networks are at a higher than usual risk for security threats from both Web and email sources.

BorderWare notes that with workplace access to broadband and high-speed Internet and more hours spent at work, employees are doing the majority of their holiday shopping in the office—during this year’s holiday season, about 72.8M people say they plan to shop online while at work. Purchases from work account for about half of all e-commerce spending, according to recent surveys, increasing the significant threats to businesses including malware and malicious code contracted from online browsing and phishing scams. Organizations looking to protect their networks from such threats need not only a cost-effective security solution for Web and email channels but also a plan for involving employees and enforcing policies to avoid inadvertently risky activity.

“While IT and security teams know the threats and risks waiting for users in the electronic shopping world, taking extra steps to inform and guide users to protect themselves can go a long way toward protecting enterprise data and assets,” says Shawn Eldridge, VP of marketing and products for BorderWare. “In addition, IT teams can implement a reputation service with URL filtering capabilities that check the validity of Web sites before employees visit them. But since many users are not aware of how phishing and pharming scams work (and may not care), sharing usage guidelines with them can supplement corporate policies and strengthen security vigilance.”

BorderWare offers these holiday browsing tips for IT Administrators to pass along to company employees:

  • Confirm that you have anti-spyware and anti-virus software on your desktop, laptop or mobile device.
  • Ensure regular anti-spyware scans are running on your computer.
  • Download and install the security updates for your operating system and browser when prompted.
  • If you are entering personal information on any Web site, make sure it is safe and secure—the URL begins with https:// instead of just http://
  • Visit a reputation service (reputationauthority.org) to check the validity of a suspicious-looking Web site before visiting it.
  • Check for differing domains when clicking on active links in your email—if it looks unusual, do not follow the link.
  • Remember that no reputable financial service will ever contact you by email to ask you to enter your password or any other sensitive information by clicking a link and visiting a Web site.

Enter your favorite bank or shopping Web site directly for service, instead of using a link emailed to you, and login to your account from the main page.

Published December 12, 2008