India Inc may soon have to check internet usage during working hours, with an average five hours a week spent on personal web surfing, causing companies an annual loss of about Rs 160,000 per employee.
These are the findings of a survey of IT managers in 450 organisations across five cities of the country - Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. The national capital came tops with employees here spending a maximum 12.35 hours every week on non-work related internet surfing.
The survey, conducted by internet security firm Websense and research firm Nielsen Company, further found that enterprises are incurring a yearly productivity loss of about Rs 1,60,000 per employee due to personal surfing.
The IT managers said that banking and finance websites were the most accessed websites (74 per cent) by the employees, followed by personal e-mail or web chat (62 per cent) and news media (53 per cent). Close to 32 per cent of the IT managers also said in the survey that they felt their employees were accessing free software download sites.
The Nasdaq-listed Websense said the survey assesses the impact of Internet at work and gauges awareness of Internet security risks among IT managers. The respondents included IT managers from large, small and medium enterprises providing Internet access to employees at work.
"The survey findings are an eye-opener and highlight how essential it is for Indian IT managers to prioritise their IT security spend into technologies that protect organisations from emerging Web-based security threats and confidential data loss," Websense's Regional Director (SAARC and India) Surendra Singh said.
According to the survey, the IT managers believed that employees sending work documents to personal e-mail IDs, clicking on links sent by unknown sources and employees sending an official e-mail to wrong IDs pose great security risk to their companies.
However, close to 31 per cent IT managers in Chennai and 26 per cent from Delhi seemed unconcerned about employees engaging in any of the above activities, Websense said. About 42 per cent of IT managers believed that their organisation was well secured against Internet security threats, while 26 per cent agreed that their Internet security measures were average.
More than half the IT managers (57 per cent) said they conducted weekly or monthly security assessments, highlighting a proactive approach towards the potential IT threats, while 95 per cent had deployed anti-virus and firewall solutions. A majority of IT managers (67 per cent) agreed to have an Internet usage policy in place for employees.
However, just over one quarter (28 per cent) admitted they have no way to enforce the Internet policy.
According to the survey, 53 per cent of IT managers believed they were held responsible if employees were found leaking confidential company information. Employees accessing restricted data on the Internet (37 per cent) emerged as the second most important reason that IT managers believed would cost them their jobs.
Websense claims IT managers across India admit that 480 security breaches occurred in 116 organisations in India in the past year, the highest being in Bangalore with 182 in 29 organisations followed by 100 breaches across 31 organisations in Mumbai.
