This Thanksgiving, Be Thankful for Network Security | Niagara Networks

Black Friday & Cyber Monday Shopping

With Thanksgiving fast approaching, many of us are getting excited for some stuffed turkey and pumpkin pie, spending time with friends and family, and maybe most importantly, indulging in a shopping marathon on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In fact, research collected by Adobe found that in 2015, Black Friday sales totaled $2.74 billion in the U.S., while Cyber Monday’s orders amounted to $3.07 billion.

With so many people online at the same time, Network Security is extremely critical. In fact, many security and IT professionals don’t even get to enjoy the holidays during this time; they are too busy making sure their networks maintain continuous uptime and are fast, efficient, and secure. Unfortunately, 38% of IT pros have experienced some network downtime during the holiday season, according to Ipswitch. Recently, e-commerce websites have gotten their act together and aren’t experiencing the same huge threats to network downtime as seen in the past. Still, the holidays are not a risk-free time for these companies. E-commerce businesses face potential overload of their network firewalls and intrusion detection systems. This can result in a bad user experience due to slow content delivery or a loss of critical security inspection if traffic has to be diverted around crucial security tools.

Identity protection is also a big concern during the holidays. In 2015, VTech hackers accessed tablets that children were using to communicate with their parents, to gain access to various websites and download content. The hackers were able to see personal information, including addresses, passwords, and birthdates.

Preventing Network Downtime with Network Visibility

This holiday, IT Pros do not have to skip the turkey dinner nor the pumpkin pie, and they can spend their Thanksgiving watching football, while making sure their networks will not collapse. Network managers can ensure their network infrastructure survives the onslaught of frenzied shoppers by implementing load balancing and Bypass technologies for their critical network tools. Additionally, network engineers can use Network Packet Brokers to gain critical knowledge about potential network choke points before they cause an emergency during the holidays. Thankfully, Niagara Networks offers leading bypass technology as part of its modular Network Packet Broker solution for increasing scalability, flexibility, and ROI. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend the day after Thanksgiving binging on leftover desserts and Netflix instead of shivering in a cold data center with a stale turkey sandwich, just waiting for something to crash…