18th February 2013
Computer giant IBM has unveiled a revolutionary new security tool aimed at helping bosses seek out irritated employees and those who don’t act in accordance with rules.
The tool is able to scan e-mails, financial transactions, web visits and even social media activity through Big Data. Through this, companies can identify disgruntled employees who may be a threat to their business. The intelligent tool can even study language patterns to see if what they say to their manager is really true: if you say something positive to your manager and then say the complete opposite to another peer, the program will be able to pick it up.
While this sounds like a "big brother" type move and something that would likely be adopted by larger businesses, it's important for small businesses to consider security issues and the potential for both intentional and unintentional breaches of company data, assets and information.
If you don't currently restrict employees from using services like Facebook and Twitter, or you allow installation of software like DropBox, you're potentiallly making it easier for employee's to post, publish or sync data belonging to the company outside it's systems, leaving it wide open to abuse. That could be from a disgruntled employee posting to Twitter some confidential data, or using Facebook to bad mouth your business, or potentially worse, your customers and damages your reputation, while services like Dropbox make it easy for someone to take a confidential document and have copies at home or even shared publically.
So while the IBM development is another advance in business security and some are concerned it is too intrusive, small businesses throughout Devon and Somerset should consider the risks and work with local IT Support specialists like us to properly restrict, manage and defend your business against these risks. If you feel security or monitoring tools such as this could be an asset to your business, improving the efficiency of your workforce, VPW's Taunton IT support experts are the people you should speak to.
Contact us today on 01392 950 950 to see how we can help you
Image Credit: Kansir (Flickr.com)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansirnet/139521507/