Risks When Employees Surf at Work

[Ceres]

Via CIOL's, I read about Websense India's recent ECRA Survey Report 2008.

On behalf of 30 organizations, Websense India surveyed around 40,000 employees. The results highlight: (1) surfing habits; and (2) whether employers are implementing enough security and policy measures.

Employees are accessing malicious websites

The survey revealed that infected Internet sites were regularly accessed by all companies. Websense monitored 7,625,796 visits to URLs which hosted malicious code.

Employees are accessing websites with legal liability issues

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing, adult material (adult content), proxy avoidance, illegal or questionable, gambling, hacking, adult material (Sex) emerged as top legal liabilities issues for organizations. Websense monitored 2,531,812 visits to URLs with legal liability issues

Loss of bandwidth:
During one week, 30 organisations experienced 805 GB of bandwidth loss due to employees' internet usage.

Loss of productivity:

Websense monitored a total time loss of 211338 hours by 40,000 employees in surfing non-business websites as categorized by organizations

Wow, these things sure add up! Seems like employers are not implementing enough security measures, plus employees need to surf less, work more and be more careful.

As for me, when I used to work at an office, I rarely surfed the web for personal use because I felt too uncomfortable doing this.

So how about you, do you surf the web at work?

 

[Jeff]

I think that it really depends on the work environment. In a professional environment, where results matter more than hours worked, I don't think it matters too much that employees do personal web surfing. For more mundane work that's paid hourly, it's a different story. As well, there is not much problem with employees surfing the internet on their breaks or lunch hours.

Also, adult and gambling sites should not be permitted.

From what I've seen, the biggest problem is employees downloading files that they should not, which end up infecting the whole office network. Downloading files should be strictly prohibited and harshly penalized.

 

[Mei]

i have experienced this kind of thing. my workmates know that it is prohibited to use the computer or internet if it is not work related, but then they still do it. when the big bosses knew about it, they blocked the social network and e-mail sites. i think that being a professional, if we are not allowed to do something, then we should not do it.