Websense has announced the findings of the SOS ‘State of Security’ survey conducted in India. The 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 employees.

The study of employees working in 450 organisations across Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad, surveyed employees with Internet access at work in large businesses and small and medium enterprises.

"The survey findings highlight that a majority of employees today spend a significant time on the Internet when at work. However, the majority of these employees are not aware of and hence not worried about the security threats arising from the Internet,” said Surendra Singh, Regional Director, SAARC, Websense.

Key findings of 2007 State of Security India, employees survey:

1. Unsafe IT behaviour leads to unintentional loss of confidential information
63% of respondents from Delhi use their personal email ID for work purposes against the average of 36%. Given the nature of data that BFSI deals with, 42% of employees in this vertical use personal e-mail for work-related activities. In Bangalore, an average of 17% of respondents admitted to clicking on links in e-mail sent from unknown sources and 22% on pop-up ads highlighting a significant section of Internet users who are ignorant of online threats.

2. Leaking information a job threat
57% employees feel leaking sensitive company information or infecting their company with malicious spyware or viruses (38%) puts them at greater risk of losing their job than not adhering to their organisation’s Internet policy (20%).

3. Employees surfing behaviour
64% of respondents admitted they are bit fearful of the security dangers of the Web and hence surf only safe Web sites.

4. Internet — A critical work enabler
Employees spend 45% of their time (3.5 hours) per day surfing work-related Web sites, the highest being in Chennai, 50% (4.25 hours) and Hyderabad, 65% (5.5 hours).

5. Organisation’s Internet security
Almost 70% of employees in India appeared confident of their IT department’s capabilities to protect them against every Internet security threat.

6. Web is biggest source of infection
52% of all employees surveyed believe that the Web is a key source of infection followed by e-mail (39%) and instant messaging (4%).

7. Data leakage
35% of employees feel most worried about losing both personal as well as work-related information.