Blocking websites at work

Monitoring of websites visited by employees

It happens more than once that during the time when an employee should be performing his work duties, he browses various websites or checks his private mail. If these actions are repeated repeatedly, then they bring significant losses to the company. Such behavior even has a special term, which is cyberslacking. It refers to a situation in which an employee uses the resources of an Internet system or a company computer for private purposes. It refers to such activities as playing online games, watching TV series, or the previously mentioned browsing of unproductive websites. This significantly slows down the time of an employee’s tasks, and certainly does not promote the efficiency of his work. Cyberslacking is also very often the cause of termination of contracts. Some business owners prevent such activities by choosing to block access to sites like Pudelek, Onet, Allegro or social networking sites. It is also worth remembering that visiting websites by employees can also have dangerous consequences for the entire organization. One of the reasons for this is their downloading of malicious software, for example. Unprotected sites also often contain viruses. An employee may come across them by clicking on suspicious links or ads, thus exposing the company to a high risk of, for example, data leakage. This means that the control of company computers allows not only to collect data on how employees use Internet resources. It also significantly affects the security of company data. However, are you sure the employer has the right to block websites?

Employer’s right to block employee’s web pages in the course of work

According to Article 128 contained in the Labor Code, during working time an employee is at the disposal of the employer. This means nothing more than the fact that he should then perform tasks arising from his job duties. The employee must carry out the activities specified within the framework of his position and follow the instructions of his supervisor. In a situation where he spends his working time browsing the Internet, he violates the provisions of the Labor Code. Thus, the employer has every right to either monitor the employee’s work email or block websites. If it finds that its confidence in office workers is low-or worse, it catches them wasting work time-it has a solid basis for preventing them from browsing certain sites. Such sites are often referred to as so-called time eaters that distract the employee from work. An official study by Gemius shows that annual losses due to visiting unproductive websites can amount to as much as PLN 6,000 a year. And that’s per employee! In addition to productivity issues, the employer also simultaneously nullifies the risk of data leakage due to an employee visiting unsafe sites. It blocks the possibility of unproductive sites, but also sites that threaten the company’s operations. For this purpose, employers often use dedicated IT systems. However, it is worth remembering to inform employees whose computers are or will be under surveillance about the introduction of a computer surveillance program. For this purpose, an appropriate provision in the work regulations, verbal or email information will suffice.

Blocking websites in the eAuditor system

BTC Website Classification is a functionality in eAuditior that automatically classifies websites and allows you to more effectively secure data in your organization. It works based on machine learning and deep learning methods. The classifier analyzes URLs used by employees and checks whether their category is productive. These can include websites about health and beauty or shopping and fashion, for example. Blocked sites are classified based on their actual content in a recurring manner and assigned to one of 21 categories. Through automatic monitoring, the classifier determines whether employees’ actions are efficient and effective. Even sites that have not been previously analyzed will be blocked if they have an unsafe category, an invalid SSL certificate, or are on the registry of gambling sites. Importantly, the catalog of classified sites is constantly expanding and available in the cloud. In addition to its impact on employee productivity, BTC Website Classification also translates into increased IT security. The classifier analyzes websites in search of potential dangers. As a result, it is able to react faster to an impending threat and protect the organization from intentional or accidental data leaks.

Why choose BTC Website Classifier for website blocking?

Full automation and high classification efficiency

Current methods are based on subjective evaluation of the operator, URL rules or on ready-made URL pattern databases. In practice, however, they are not very effective. The BTC Website Classification solution allows each site to be classified fully automatically. In addition, websites are re-classified every month. This is important when a site, for example, changes ownership.

High speed and quality

Classification of web pages is very fast and is carried out using three independent algorithms. The standard classification time is > 10 pages / sec. Importantly, it can be increased according to the customer’s needs.

Classification of foreign websites

BTC Website Classification classifies a site based on its Polish and English content. Other classifiers available on the market are not able to block Polish pages, for example. BTC Process Classification can classify any site containing content in the above-mentioned languages.

Productivity and safety

The classified websites also return information on the productivity and security of the analyzed site. The sites are checked for potential dangers, including detecting sites that can phish for data or sites blocked by the government, such as those with gambling themes.

Want to learn more? Check out our dedicated BTC Webiste Classification page – https://www.eauditor.eu/website-classification/

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