VPN traffic explodes due to COVID-19 outbreak – 4 tips on how to save bandwidth with F-Secure Protection Service for Business

As the number of remote workers skyrockets due to COVID-19, many companies are struggling to keep up. Here’s a way to free up some bandwidth using F-Secure Protection Service for Business.

The recent coronavirus outbreak is causing anxiety for people around the world, but it is also causing additional headaches for IT teams as the number of remote workers suddenly exceeds the limits of the company’s VPN. Some companies may not have enough licenses to accommodate the sudden increase in remote VPN users. Other companies may struggle with VPN bandwidth problems – some applications, such as streaming media and social media, can hog bandwidth and affect VPN connectivity for all connections.

Practical advice on reducing network traffic

Here’s some practical tips on how network admins can reduce network traffic with F-Secure Protection Service for Business:

1. Communicate with users about the issue. Let them know that they should consider not using bandwidth hungry applications through the company VPN. Also, let them know that in order to save bandwidth you are going to limit the usage of certain applications and services.

2. Restrict YouTube – and possibly other forms of streaming media traffic – with PSB’s Browsing Protection. Make sure your profile has ‘web site exceptions’ turned on and add desired streaming media sites to ‘Denied sites’.

3. Restrict Social Media traffic with PSB’s Browsing Protection. In ‘Web content control’ select ‘Social networking’ to disallow it.

4. If you have a premium version of F-Secure Protection Service for Business, select Application control, select ‘Add exclusion’ from the exclusions menu, create a rule name, and attribute ‘Target signer name’ ‘is equal to’ the applications you want to deny.

As a result your users will get a block page if they are trying to access an excluded site, for example:

Please note that your users might not like the restrictions, but the restrictions will help your employees to continue working during the crisis. Stay safe and take care!