Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi , Aug 5

SURFING the Internet at work is becoming an addiction for corporate executives.

According to a new study done by the US-based employee Internet management solutions provider Websense Inc, more than 51 per cent of the employees surveyed in India prefer to give up their morning coffee than their opportunity to use the Internet at work.

The study called India Web@work reveals that 82 per cent of employees in India spend an average of 5 hours a week accessing non-work related Internet sites from an office PC during work hours.

Comparitively, 93 per cent of US workers surf for an average of 12 hours a week during work hours. The most popular non-work related sites for employees in India are online news, online banking and personal mail. The survey was conducted among 100 middle managers and IT managers across India.

The survey is conducted annually across Asia Pacific and Latin America. It pointed out that more employees in India (16 per cent) admitted that they have uploaded or downloaded non-work related MP3, video clips, or movie clips than any other region surveyed.

Thirty two per cent of the employees said that they have given out financial, personal or confidential data such as passwords or social security numbers as a result of phishing attacks. Phishing attacks are frauds who try to source sensitive information by posing themselves as a credible entity. A majority of the IT managers believed that their employees have clicked through the URL on a phishing attack — the highest of any region surveyed.

Eighty eight per cent of IT managers surveyed disclosed that if an IT security breach were to occur at their company, it could put their employment at risk. 28 per cent said that protecting their company against malicious Internet security threats was more stressful than moving houses.

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