iSheriff Warns: FIFA World Cup Set to Penalize Businesses

Orange, California, USA (June 11, 2010) – Internet cloud security vendor iSheriff Ltd today warned that the FIFA World Cup will not only affect worker productivity, but may also disrupt critical Web-based business resources through excessive bandwidth consumption on sites such as YouTube. The FIFA World Cup, set to kick off today in South Africa and run for the next month, is expected to draw a global audience of almost 5 billion fans.

“It probably won’t come as a shock to some employers that workers might be calling in sick the morning after their team has played. Most businesses accept that these kinds of events will distract their staff and reduce productivity at some point. What many companies don’t realize is how events like this can hijack their network bandwidth and disrupt legitimate business functions. Fans accessing streaming media and live coverage at work can prevent productive employees accessing online tools such as Salesforce.com or add major delays to file downloads,” said iSheriff CEO, Oscar Marquez.

iSheriff says YouTube often accounts for more than 75 percent of normal business bandwidth consumption in typical organizations, with that use set to skyrocket during the World Cup. The company suggests that while total bans on social networking and streaming media can be heavy-handed and counter to the spirit of some company culture’s - there are a range of steps that companies can take to manage bandwidth use and mitigate disruption to their business and productivity.

For companies that want to preserve their bandwidth, but don’t want to cut off World Cup news and coverage completely, iSheriff suggests providing dedicated World Cup computers in the staff room or cafeteria alongside television coverage.

“One of the major problems with events of this kind is workers repeatedly accessing the same coverage from their workstations. This is inefficient as YouTube videos are not cached, so every time someone views coverage on YouTube, they are downloading that video from scratch. A 30 megabyte video accessed 100 times adds up to three gigabytes of data spent on the same video,” said Marquez

“If you establish central World Cup access in your staff common room or cafeteria you encourage more efficient use of bandwidth while helping workers keep in touch with their teams in a more appropriate way,” said Marquez.

iSheriff says that its Web Security Service can control access to sites such as YouTube by workstation or user, enabling organizations to lock down work computers during the Cup but allow free access to sports sites and streaming media from nominated computers.

“However organization’s choose to manage worker productivity during the World Cup, the key is communication. Keep workers informed of their responsibilities and the organization’s expectations of appropriate Internet use during the cup and hopefully everyone can enjoy the occasion productively,” said Marquez.

More information on iSheriff’s Web Security Service can be found at:
http://www.isheriff.com/isheriff-saas/security-web-service

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About iSheriff
iSheriff is the first company to provide a proprietary, integrated Security as a Service solution for cloud-based Web and email security featuring a common Web management and reporting console. Our mission is to provide clients with accessible, easy to understand security services that secure their Internet world and enable them to complete their business in safety and privacy – whether their enterprise is large or small.

Our security services utilize sophisticated, patented, real-time content analysis technologies developed and refined over the last 10 years to ensure maximum threat protection. Our approach to how we deliver this technology and enable clients to access, manage and report on their email and Web usage is to provide simple, easy to use services. This is the key to ensuring that our clients understand and receive the maximum returns and benefits of iSheriff SaaS.

For more information visit www.isheriff.com

iSheriff Contact:
Adrian Duigan, Head of Marketing
pr@isheriff.com
+1 (714) 408 7789

Contact Information

Adrian Duigan

Head of Marketing

iSheriff Ltd

Contact via E-mail