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Burstek Releases 2005 Internet Usage Study; Extensive Survey Examines Internet Habits of 10,000+ Users While at Work

Posted on: Monday, 20 March 2006, 09:00 CST

Burstek(TM), a leading provider of employee Internet management (EIM) solutions, today announced the availability of the company's 2005 Internet Usage Study. This study examines results from the Internet activity reported for 10,688 employees in 2005, and highlights activity related to the three major enterprise security threat groups: legal liability, security risk and lost productivity. Findings from this study can help organizations better understand the Internet habits of employees, allowing them to more effectively manage usage.

"Like a powerful medication, the Internet has a revolutionary impact on global business, and it is hard to imagine a firm that has not been affected," said David Smith, COO of Burstek. "Unfortunately, along with the benefits come many side effects that have the potential to dramatically erode productivity and pose many other dangers to the enterprise and to employees, themselves. That is why it is so vital to carefully monitor employee Internet use. This study confirms that uncontrolled employee Internet use is a very serious threat to compliance, security and productivity."

Highlights from this study include:

-- 78.1 percent of all users accessed the Internet while at work for personal use and entertainment (resulting in more than 20 percent of all pages viewed, viewing time and bandwidth costs);

-- 72.34 percent of all personal use represented employee productivity draining Web sites, including those for shopping, entertainment, personal e-mail, sports, chat rooms, job searches and game playing;

-- 19.42 percent of all personal use represented Web sites that posed a security threat to the network, including spyware, file sharing and malicious code; and

-- 8.23 percent of all personal use represented Web sites that posed legal liability risks, including pornography, hacking, gambling and hate speech.

Organizations seldom recognize the level of personal use, its staggering cost or how much of that use poses real security and legal risk. Even industries such as Government and Healthcare have issues, despite regulations and dedicated budgets driving security and privacy overhauls.

-- Governmental agencies had the highest incidence of employees accessing sites containing spyware and malicious code (nearly 23 percent);

-- Healthcare, the industry with the lowest incidence of high-security risk site access of all compared, was still relatively high (17.8 percent incidence rate).

"Employee misuse of the Internet is not always intentional, but in many cases, unknowing users are targeted by serious external threats," said Smith. "The number one Web site accessed across all industries from a security threat perspective was weatherbug.com. Many presumably public-service oriented sites like this one are very often hosts for Trojan horses and malicious code in their downloads."

The past few years have seen a rapid increase of organizations providing employees with Internet access, embracing e-mail and Internet connectivity as boons to overall productivity and as tools of efficient communication within and outside the organization. Unrestricted and unmanaged employee Internet access can result in consequences to the enterprise including wasted time, misappropriation of resources, loss of sensitive information, reduced bandwidth and network failures. Burstek provides thousands of organizations with the Internet management tools and expertise needed for easy-to-use, industry-leading security solutions that protect the network, manage Web usage and optimize the Internet resource.

The complete 2005 Internet Usage Study provides additional statistics and analysis of internet use by industry, as well as breaking out the individual risk categories. It identifies the top sites visited for categories such as online chat, shopping, sports, Web-mail and more. The full report with results and analysis of the study is available online at: http://www.burstek.com/resource_page.htm.

About Burstek

Burstek is a leading provider of employee Internet management (EIM) solutions. Founded in 1997, Burstek aids Fortune 1000 companies including American Express, Lockheed Martin, Siemens and the U.S. Air Force and Navy in reducing legal liability, security risk and lost productivity from employee Internet activity. Burstek is headquartered in Bonita Springs, Fla. For more information, please visit www.burstek.com.

Source: Business Wire

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