SAN MATEO, CA — Employees working outside the office are more likely than their desk-bound coworkers to surf porn, trade files via the Web and visit violent sites or those with information about building bombs according to the results of a survey by internet security firm ScanSafe.Employees viewing questionable online content puts employers at risk of legal liability and exposure to malware, a ScanSafe representative said.
The survey, which included analysis of eight billion Web requests processed by ScanSafe in march, indicated remote employees are 8.5 times more likely to visit file-sharing sites, 2.5 times more likely to surf porn, 5.2 times more likely to seek violent content and 3.9 times more likely to visit sites that promote “illegal activities” like bomb-making.
“It’s no surprise that Web browsing habits change when employees are outside of the physical confines of their office and away from the watchful eye of supervisors and colleagues,” ScanSafe Vice President of Product Strategy Dan Nadir said. “What is surprising is that there is such a huge increase in requests for what most organizations would deem highly offensive sites and in some cases illegal content — including the download of copyrighted material. If your employees are using a corporate-issued laptop to download illegal music files from home, your organization could be liable.”
Interestingly, the survey indicated there is one category of sites remote employees are less likely to visit when they are out of the office: banking sites. According to the data, roaming employees are 66-percent less likely than their colleagues to visit online banking sites.
According to ScanSafe, many companies are not securing Web use for their remote workers. Extending security solutions for roaming laptop users is complex, hard to maintain, expensive and falls short of offering full protection, Nadir said.
