point
Menu
Magazines
Browse by year:
50% of Bangalore Inc. bruised by employee browsing, survey
Harish Revanna
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Websense, a provider of web and desktop security software, has surveyed the concerns lurking in the minds of CIOs and IT managers on threats from employee surfing. Going by the pulse of these security managers of companies based in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai, concerns over web-related threats due to excess employee surfing looms as high as 7.6 on a scale of 10.
Scale, though, primarily tabulated responses of 320 companies ranging small, medium and large; and diversified in field of functions. “To cut through the debate of computerized and non-computerized organizations, the survey classified companies as small, medium and large based on the PC penetration, not on the headcount or revenues,” said Manish Bansal, Regional Marketing Manager, South East Asia and India for Websense. (see panel on pc penetration)
While most of the security managers across the country believed that internet boosts productivity, enhances collaboration and reduces time of communication, companies automatic involvement only depicts their concerns over the threats, says the survey. Each of these responses by IT managers were classified as low, moderate and highly concerned; and carried scores of 1-4, 4-7 and 7-10 respectively. And finally calculated to get the cumulative response of all.
A closer look into the survey outlines that a huge chunk of responses were chipped in by companies in the medium and large categories—43 and 46 respectively. Bangalore Inc. too reflected the same pattern, with 43 medium and 43 large companies showing more concern over security breach from employee browsing. Incidentally, large organizations, both in Bangalore and India as a whole, had a high degree of organizations which belong to IT/ITES, BFSI or other service industries where the internet access given to employees is comparatively higher.
As if to hog the limelight for both good and bad reason, Bangalore Inc. which formed a major chunk of surveyed companies—95 in all, expressed more concern over web related threats followed by Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad. “Bangalore too has the same cumulative concern of7.6 as the rest of the country does,” said Surendra Singh, Head of South East Asia and India for Websense.
For another question as to how many of them believed that internet has opened the doors for viruses and worms in their companies, overall 55 percent—180 companies out of 320—admitted with great modesty. While the modest of all were Chennai (71%) and Hyderabad (68%), Bangalore and Mumbai were reserved with 51 percent each. However, as if testifying the surety of the survey, CIOs across the country felt that a few of the channels through which employees get security threats into corporate networks include free software downloads, use of IM, proxy avoidance sites, visiting malicious web sites and pop-ups.
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
facebook