HD IT Services is pleased to announce the latest in its line of solutions developed exclusively for our small business clients: The HD Internet Auditor.

As in the case of our Disaster Recovery backup service, we developed The Internet Auditor as a response to a persistent customer question: 

“I’ve spent thousands of dollars on computer equipment, and each day I see my employees typing away at their keyboards. But how can I be sure they are using my IT equipment appropriately and not for personal activities? Could my systems be at risk of security problems if they are misused?”

Most of the technologies developed to address these concerns are designed for large corporations and are therefore prohibitively expensive. But as our clients continued to pose the question we realized that a solution tailored just for small business was called for. We combined and customized a variety of technologies to develop our new Internet Auditor solution, which brings our small business clients on par with Fortune 500 corporations when it comes to managing use of their IT resources. The solution offers three optional modules:

Internet Filtering & Monitoring. Provides 100% tracking of websites visited by each user, including time logged on to each site. Automatically blocks access to inappropriate websites based on user-configurable menus. Customized blocking and white listing of websites company wide.

Instant Messenger Filtering & Monitoring. Limits employee use of instant messenger programs to an approved list of applications controlled by management. Logs all IM conversations to ensure that instant messaging is only used for approved business purposes.

Email Filtering & Monitoring. Monitoring, antivirus, anti-spam and anti-pornography filtering of all company email.

Our clients may choose any or all three of these filtering and monitoring modules depending on their needs. By doing so small business can expect an extremely high return on their investment resulting from the following:

• A increase in productivity. A recent Salary.com survey found that the average employee wastes up to 2 hours per day on non work-related activities, much of it on instant messaging chats, internet surfing, and personal email.
  
  
• Improvements in network and system security. Malicious infection of a single PC can cost hundreds of dollars to remedy and can spread to other systems on the network or even to the main server. Infection of the main server can cost over $1,000 to remedy. Nearly all computer security threats attack servers and desktops via internet-related activities. The most common vectors for these threats are links to malicious websites in chat or email messages, infected email attachments, or code embedded in inappropriate websites visited by employees. By filtering internet content small businesses can reduce the risk of these expensive infections.
  
  
• A reduction in legal liabilities. An entire field of sexual harassment law is concentrated on cases triggered by the display or circulation of sexually explicit materials in the workplace (aka “hostile working environment” harassment). The internet contains huge quantities of inappropriate materials that can be displayed or circulated on business systems. The HD Internet Auditor helps to block offensive content from your business environment.
  

The use of internet monitoring solutions should always be combined with a robust “Acceptable Use” policy for IT systems, which ensures both employees’ understanding of their responsibilities and which protects their privacy. HD IT Services offers a template Acceptable Use policy in combination with its Internet Auditor solution and will be happy to assist in customization of the policy as needed.