People know proxy servers as a way to unblock content from geo-restricted sites like Netflix. But if you’ve launched a small business, this actually solves many security issues.
A proxy service works as the link between your computer with a private IP address and a server on the internet with its own IP address. If you’re running with a proxy server, the IP address the public sees is the proxy’s IP address. This simple change can benefit a business not only in security measures but also in providing better customer service and improving other business functions.
Here are six things proxy servers are capable of doing and reasons why it is important for businesses.
1. To Protect Your Business from Hackers
Any business, whether just a startup or an established company, has important information that must be secured. For example, every customer detail (names, address, contact numbers, and products/services they purchase) and business information (bank accounts, Wi-Fi passwords, and so on) are priceless information that hackers would love to get a hold of.
If you don’t have an IT team to fight off hackers for you, the quickest and least expensive option for your business is to use a proxy service to keep the information of your company and customers safe at all times.
2. Save Bandwidth and Increase Internet Speeds
Contrary to popular belief that proxy servers cause lag and reduced internet speeds due to the tasks it accomplishes in the background, note that this isn’t true.
If settings are done right, a proxy server can improve internet speed and even save bandwidth on your company’s network. This is possible if the proxy server is set up to cache files, compress traffic, strip website ads, and cache web pages that are accessed by multiple people at a time.
3. Control internet usage of employees
Having a proxy server can also prevent inappropriate or non-secure websites from being accessed in the workplace. This control can be as huge as removing access to social media sites like Facebook or Instagram, which in turn saves the company from paying wasted employee hours. Or as specific as choosing which device or user has access to ALL sites and which ones are given limited access.
Bigger companies use a proxy server to record the internet activities of employees, which is essential for security officers or network administrators to find any security breach or illegal activities being done online within company premises.
4. Offer Anonymity
Proxy servers are best used in keeping employees anonymous when conducting tasks online. This is especially true with how the world works right now – every little search you do online (whether from Google or social media sites) is being recorded and analyzed, so the ads that pop up on the sides of your screen are somewhat related to all the searches you’ve done recently.
As a business, you’d want the data coming out from your office to represent your brand. Having a proxy server to serve as the barrier of your employee’s computers, you can rest assured that whatever your employees sent out to the world isn’t being traced as freely.
If your company is involved in research and development, proxy servers can guard your online activities against being snatched up by the competition. Any other sensitive tasks that are done within your server become secured when anonymized by a proxy server.
5. Manage Traffic and Avoid Company Server from Crashing
If your company website keeps on crashing, you may lose customers and sales. Prevent this from happening by managing your traffic properly.
You don’t have to be too techy about this. Just know that all the data from your website is stored within several servers around the world, with hosting networks taking the bulk of traffic.
As a business, you may think that you have no control over how your website works, but this is actually false. With a proxy server, you can let it create a single web address (instead of several access points). Your own proxy server will now manage the traffic that’s trying to come in. It will handle the requests for all the servers you have, essentially avoiding overloading or any possibility of a website crash.
The good news is that the proxy server works in the background, and your customers won’t even know that their requests are being put in a queue.
6. Improve overall Company Security
Data breaches aren’t just about company secrets and financial loss. The problem with a non-secure network is that it could even cause the company’s public image to get damaged. Having a proxy server adds an additional layer of protection to a company’s data.
Businesses can be vulnerable to attacks, spying eyes, website crashes, data tracking, and other avoidable intrusions. By incorporating a proxy server into the company’s networking, your company data and day-to-day operations are not as vulnerable to these issues.