Black Friday has arrived earlier than ever this year, with many major stores and other providers already offering steep discounts for shoppers who can’t wait for the day after Thanksgiving. And you know what’s right around the corner, too: Cyber Monday, that heavenly shopping event for tech-savvy consumers and businesses alike. The big question is: Can your business handle the one-two punch of these two commercial bonanzas? Make sure you’ve covered the following bases.

Bandwidth and connectivity issues - If you’re lucky, your business will be flooded with online orders. How much confidence do you have in your current ability to handle the resulting strain on your bandwidth? What measures do you have in place to keep your online business online in the event of an unanticipated connectivity failure?

Inbound network threats - Malware practitioners may find major sales-holiday seasons an ideal time to throw out phishing emails, Trojan horse attachments, and ransomware attacks amidst the flurry of communications pouring into businesses like yours. When was the last time you had your network security evaluated or updated? What kind of disaster recovery plan can you implement if the worst comes to pass?

Smart internal practices - You may have drafted temp workers to supplement your regular crew during this busy time -- but what degree of password permissions and other network access do (or should) these workers have? Your own employees may feel the need to hit the online stores from their workstations if they can’t take off from work. Make sure you can control this behavior so you won’t lose tons of productivity or expose your network to danger unnecessarily.

If you need help with any or all of these seasonal challenges, reach out to Gravity Systems today. Our Austin business IT support experts can get your business ready for a busy, profitable November!