In today’s advanced work environment, technology is a standard part of the day to day operation of the business. Making your company’s computers, printers, and other hardware work together safely on the Internet requires plenty of hardware to make it all work. In theory, it seems it’s not much different than connecting computers at home but using consumer grade equipment in your business could introduce security risks and issues you didn’t think about. We’ll look at the risks of using consumer grade hardware in your business, coming up next.
It may be easy to run to your local electronics or big box store and buy up some inexpensive home-based hardware to set up in your business and connect to your network. Though this seems easy enough, you may be unaware of the potential issues that this may contribute. Here are three risks of using consumer grade hardware in your business.
1. Performance Issues – Business networks have higher demands than typical home environments. Consumer grade equipment does not usually provide ways to manage internal traffic to give priority to certain tasks or users. Unmanaged components in a business network means that performance can be significantly decreased. This could cause certain tasks to be slower and Internet speeds could easily impact employee productivity and efficiency.
2. Poorly tested and Cheap Components – For most businesses, access to technology and the internet is critical. By using consumer grade equipment on your network, you introduce the potential for downtime and lost revenues. Much of the consumer grade hardware on the market, uses inexpensive internal components to keep the price of the hardware down. This may be ok for less demanding environments, but for businesses that require technology, a small initial savings up front might just lead to big losses down the road.
3. Security Issues – Security has become a huge concern for every business no matter the size or revenue. Hackers are looking for simple ways they can to penetrate a network. Once your network is hacked, they can gain access to your information or potentially lock down the network and demand a ransom. By using consumer grade hardware you may be missing out on security built for business as well as updates that keep the network secure from real-time threats.
If you have deployed consumer equipment in your business, it’s not too late to protect your network. Our team can evaluate your network and recommend hardware that will best suit the needs of your environment. Feel free to give us a call.
Liberteks
518-452-0550 XT 1
www.liberteks.com
