Two-thirds of US workers surf the Net for personal use at work, new study shows

London, UK, 24 April 2000 - Almost two-thirds of US workers surf the Internet for personal interest while at work, a research study conducted by Greenfield Online, Inc on behalf of GFI has shown.

"This study confirms our own in-house research that unproductive use of the Internet is widespread. This results not only in loss of time and wasted bandwidth at work, but this also drains organizations financially," said Nick Galea, GFI president. "GFI has developed LANguard Internet/Network Access Control for this very reason - to prevent unproductive use of the Internet by monitoring users' web surfing patterns according to the organization's specific needs."

LANguard monitors all Internet traffic to prevent unproductive use of the Internet. Its rules engine allows administrators to specify which sites are allowed, and what type of content users can search for or read. LANguard includes extensive Internet use reporting tools. Because LANguard uses a sniffer engine, it is easy to install and does not affect Internet performance or require you to reconfigure your network clients. This feature also enables it to detect password sniffers on the network and protects against external and internal threats, such as hackers and users accessing shares they are not authorized to view.

Greenfield Online interviewed 1,000 respondents about the number of hours they spend cyberslacking - that is, surfing the Net for personal use while at work, the sites they visit while doing so, and whether they had encountered dangerous files such as Trojans while surfing or through email.

The Greenfield survey revealed that 64 per cent of the interviewees said they use the Internet for personal interest during working hours. Of these, 26% spend less than an hour doing so, 22% spend 1 to 2 hours, 8 per cent spend 3 to 4 hours and another 8 per cent spend more than 5 hours cyberslacking.

Respondents of all income levels admitted to cyberslacking, and various kinds of sites serve to distract employees from their work, the Greenfield Online study shows.

The survey found search engines, news sites, information sites and email sites to be the most popular: 36%, 32%, 31%, and 29% of the respondents respectively indicated this type of the site as they kind they visit for personal interest while they work.

Shopping, entertainment and games sites are next in line (19, 16 and 14% respectively), followed by work-time visits to health-related sites, travel sites, sports sites and brand-related sites (13, 13, 11 and 10% respectively). Other sites visited by employees for personal interest during working hours are chat sites, non-profit organizations' sites, TV/cable sites and adult sites, among others.

Asked whether they had ever accidentally picked up dangerous files such as Trojans while surfing the Net for personal interest, 29 per cent of the interviewees replied that they did not know, 6 per cent said they had and 64 per cent gave "No" as their answer. As for dangerous files via email, 27 per cent were unaware as to whether they had ever encountered such a file by email, 19 per cent said they had, and 54 per cent had not.

Of those who have run into dangerous files over the Internet or by email, 45 per cent have done so 1 to 2 times, 34 per cent have done so 3 to 4 times, 10 per cent have encountered dangerous files 5 to 6 times, and the rest - 11 per cent - have done so 7 or more times.

The study was conducted in the US in March 2000 and involved respondents from all walks of life. 590 or 59 per cent of the interviewees were male and 410 were female.

Just over a quarter of the respondents - 27 per cent - are aged between 25 and 35. 22 per cent are between 35 and 44 years of age, 18 over cent are aged between 45 to 54, and another 18 per cent are aged between 18 to 24. Of the remaining 16 per cent, 5 per cent are under 18, 7 per cent are between 55 to 64 years old, and the remainder is aged 65 or over.

Over a third - 35 per cent - are college graduates and 16 per cent have conducted postgraduate work or attained a postgrad degree. 34 per cent of the respondents are high school graduates with some time spent at college. 67 per cent are employed and of these, 46 per cent earn between $35,000 and $74,999.

More information about LANguard can be found at http://www.gfi.com/languard/.