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Websense announced the findings of the SOS 'State of Security' survey conducted in India. The independent survey commissioned by Websense and undertaken by The Nielsen Company, India, assesses the impact of the Internet at work and gauges awareness of Internet security risks among IT managers. The study of IT managers in 450 organizations across Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad, included both large businesses and small and medium enterprises providing Internet access to employees at work.

IT managers estimate that employees spend 5 hours per week on personal surfing, the highest being employees from Delhi, who spend 12.35 hours per week. Yearly, enterprises incur a productivity loss of approximately Rs. 160,000 (USD 4,039) per employee, due to surfing non-work related Web sites during the working day. IT managers cited Banking & Finance Web sites (74 percent), personal e-mail/Web chat sites (62 percent) and news-media Web sites (53 percent) as the top sites accessed by employees. 32 percent IT managers also feel their employees access free software download sites.

“The survey findings are an eye-opener and highlight how essential it is for Indian IT managers to prioritize their spending on technologies to protect organizations from emerging web-based security threats and confidential data loss,” Websense regional director (Saarc and India) Surendra Singh said.

According to the survey, the IT managers believed employees sending work documents to personal email IDs, clicking on links sent by unknown sources and sending official emails to wrong IDs posed great security risk to their companies. However, close to 31 per cent of the managers in Chennai and 26 per cent in Delhi did not seem concerned about employees engaging in any of these activities, Websense said.

About 42 percent of IT managers believed that their organization was well secured against Internet security threats, while 26 percent agreed that their Internet security measures were average. More than half the IT managers (57 percent) said they conducted weekly or monthly security assessments, highlighting a proactive approach towards the potential IT threats, while 95 percent had deployed anti-virus and firewall solutions.

A majority of the IT managers (67 per cent) agreed to put an Internet usage policy for employees in place. However, over a quarter (28 per cent) admitted they had no way to enforce such a policy. According to the survey, 53 per cent of the IT managers believed they would be held responsible if employees were found leaking confidential company information. Employees accessing restricted data on the Internet emerged as the second most important reason (37 per cent) why IT managers believed they could lose their jobs.

The IT managers admitted that 480 security breaches had occurred in 116 organizations in the past year. The highest was in Bangalore, where there were 182 breaches in 29 organizations, followed by Mumbai with 100 instances in 31 organizations.