Unproductive Corporate Internet Usage Data
Published: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Online-Casinos.com
ALMOST HALF OF CORPORATE INTERNET USAGE IS UNPRODUCTIVE
Latest ScanSafe stats show an alarming abuse of employer Internet facilities
ScanSafe, a provider of Web Security-as-a-Service that monitors clients' use of the Internet, issued compelling data this week on corporate Web usage.
The company reports that of the Web traffic the company scanned in February 2007, 49 percent was non-productive including requests for gambling, music, porn and Webmail sites. Overall, Web filtering blocks were up 8 percent compared to January.
Specifically, the company reported that:
* 14 percent of blocks were for advertising and promotion
* 12 percent of blocks were to online chat and Instant Messenger (IM) sites
* 10 percent of blocks were for Webmail
* Music, gambling and pornographic sites each accounted for 4 percent of blocks
* Blocks to gambling sites were up a record 22 percent over January
"Beyond the negative impact on productivity, uncontrolled use of the Web can have serious and costly consequences for businesses of all sizes including exposure to legal liability, disclosure of confidential information, breaches of compliance requirements and unnecessary bandwidth consumption," said Dan Nadir, vice president, product strategy, ScanSafe.
Nadir added that events such as Valentine's Day and the Super Bowl tend to drive up unproductive Web traffic in the work place. For example, the week prior to the Super Bowl, the company saw a 77 percent increase in U.S.-based requests for gambling and sports-related sites.
The company expects to see a jump in U.S.-based requests for gambling and sports-related sites throughout March during the annual NCAA Division 1 Basketball Championship tournament as users go online to watch live streaming game video, place a bet or just IM with friends about the tournament as part of "March Madness."
Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based firm, anticipates that March Madness will result in $3.8 billion in lost worker productivity this year alone.
In addition to the data on Web filtering, ScanSafe also reported it blocked 24 new IM threats in February, 54 percent of which affected MSN Messenger compared to 21 percent that affected Yahoo! and 17 percent that affected AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).
Over the past 12 months, MSN Messenger has consistently ranked #1 as the most targeted IM platform. Fifty-three percent of all the IM-based threats blocked by ScanSafe in the past year have affected MSN, compared to 41 percent that affected AIM and 29 percent that affected Yahoo!.
The company also reported a marginal decline in malware in February. Web viruses remained virtually unchanged in February after increasing 27 percent in January. Spyware and adware blocks decreased 2 percent in February compared to a 26 percent increase the previous month.
"Historically, we see a jump in Web malware in January followed by a slight drop in February," Nadir said. "Attackers know that malware may have a better chance of being propagated following the New Year when many users are returning from the holiday and haven't patched their PCs. This seasonality usually corrects itself and we tend to see a steady increase in malware, particularly spyware, as the year progresses."
The ScanSafe Global Threat Report is based on real-time analysis of more than 6 billion Web requests and more than 12 million Web threats scanned by the company in February and is the largest analysis of Web security threats based on real-world traffic.
With offices in London and San Mateo, California, ScanSafe is privately owned and financed by Benchmark Capital and Scale Venture Partners. The company received the Info Security Global Product Excellence Award for Best Managed Security Service and was named one of Red Herring's Top 100 Technology companies.
