Will the Super Bowl Sack Small Business Networks?

Everyone loves a good instant replay, but employees reliving the moment on their PCs in the days following the big game could sap your company’s network bandwidth, slow productivity and open the door to security risks. ePlanetSecurity takes a look at the issues involved.

Quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Drew Brees will take their share of hits this coming Super Bowl Sunday, but IT departments should be on the defensive, as well. Network security firm Palo Alto Networks warns major events like this inevitably lead to big increases in bandwidth use and security issues the day after, if not longer.

“I think any time you have these kind of broad-based, cultural events, whether it’s the Super Bowl, March Madness, an election, the Grammys or Oscars or the Olympics, a lot of people tune in and when they get to work, they change the way they interact,” Chris King, director of product marketing at Palo Alto Networks,” told InternetNews.com. “They go to Facebook, Twitter and these other social networking sites to interact instead of the water cooler.”

And that interaction can lead to big jumps in bandwidth use, enough to affect a company’s network performance, as well as raise numerous security concerns.

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