In evaluating network performance, which factor is most likely responsible for degradation observed during business hours?

The factor most likely responsible for network performance degradation during business hours is unauthorized network activities. During peak business hours, the network experiences increased legitimate user activity, which can accumulate high data traffic. If there are also unauthorized activities occurring, such as bandwidth-intensive operations by unauthorized users or devices, this can lead to significant congestion.

These unauthorized activities consume valuable bandwidth and resources, impacting the overall performance of the network. They could involve activities such as file transfers, excessive use of streaming services, or even malicious actions that further strain the network. This parallel load on the system can result in significant slowdowns, higher latency, and reduced application performance, ultimately affecting business operations.

In contrast, while malware or firewall misconfigurations can lead to performance issues, they typically do not manifest solely during business hours and may not be as significant a daily factor compared to the increased legitimate and illegitimate activities taking place at that time. Increased spam can impact the email server specifically, but does not generally degrade overall network performance as directly as unauthorized activities can.