Competition for Most Outrageous Corporate Internet Abuse Highlights Growing Problem with Controlling Employee Internet Use

New York-, Interop New York Conference, Booth 930 – September 18, 2006 –The results of a competition just released by Internet filtering and reporting company 8e6 Technologies, revealed that a growing number of corporate employees are abusing the Internet for personal gain and putting their organizations at risk of legal liability. The contest solicited stories of the most outrageous employee misuse of the Internet while at work. Of the more than 500 respondents, the winning story went to a CTO who discovered an employee had inadvertently created a botnet within the company's network after surfing real estate sites in search of a new home. The botnet was stealing bandwidth and processing power from the company's resources and illustrates the growing problem of accidental malware infection from even legitimate Web sites.

"Many of the responses illustrate the IT and legal nightmares that occur each and every day inside of organizations of all sizes," commented Eric Lundbohm, vice president of marketing for 8e6. "While some of the stories seem outlandish or amusing at first, they are quite serious for the companies involved and could have been prevented if the organizations had the proper Acceptable Use Policies monitoring tools in place."

Second prize went to a technology manager at a state bank who discovered a male employee who had created an internal site on the network with pornographic pictures of himself and was e-mailing the images to female employees, including the CEO and other top executives. Third prize was awarded to a multimedia operations specialist who caught an employee running a software-sharing Website that was pirating Microsoft applications- another serious legal liability for an enterprise. Other anecdotes can be found on the 8e6 Website at www.8e6.com.

Of the responses from more than 500 participants, illegal file sharing and movie downloads was an common problem for network security professionals, with significant legal ramifications for corporations. Pornography sites created and hosted within the network were among the most common infractions of Internet Acceptable Usage Policies cited in the study and, surprisingly, a number of respondents named escort services run from the company's network as the most outlandish use of the corporate network.

Competition participants were also asked to fill out a survey form in which results indicated that malware allowed into the network as a result of employee action is on the rise and increasingly, IT and security departments are required to report to management on their employees’ use of the Internet.

Survey Highlights

• More than 40 percent of survey respondents cited blocking inappropriate content as the most critical business need for Web filtering within their organizations.
• Nearly two thirds of respondents are facing the challenge of increased levels of malware and phishing attacks on the network as a direct result of employee Internet usage.
  
• The majority of respondents are interested in incorporating laptop filtering in their security strategy, with 80 percent citing the need to ensure consistent enforcement of Acceptable Use Policies across all computers, regardless of whether they are operating inside or outside the network.
  
• A growing number of enterprises are requiring internet filtering and reporting as part of the company’s compliance program and audit preparation. 40 percent already incorporate them into their compliance strategy.
  

The competition and survey was conducted at Interop Las Vegas in May. 8e6 plans to conduct a similar survey at Interop New York this week and will release the comparative results shortly after the show.

"8e6 started in this business more than 10 years ago when the most serious infractions were employees accessing inappropriate content for their own amusement. However, with the workforce's increased knowledge of the Internet and how to abuse it for personal gain and illegal activity, 8e6 has evolved to provide IT administrators with the filtering and reporting tools to prevent these actions where possible or take immediate and targeted action towards the rogue individual, " said Paul Myer, president and COO of 8e6 Technologies. "It will be interesting to review the results of this upcoming competition and determine, as we suspect, that a growing number of enterprises will be required to report on employee Internet activity within their compliance and audit programs to avoid legal woes."

About 8e6 Technologies

8e6 Technologies is a security company dedicated to Internet filtering and reporting. We are the only Web filtering company that uses a unique "pass-by technology" on a highly scalable appliance. Our standalone reporting appliance is easy to use and provides extremely detailed information, faster than any other product on the market. 8e6 helps protect its customers from all internal threats including spyware, malware, and Internet abuse leading to data loss and liability–while preventing bandwidth misuse. By preventing improper use of network resources and employee time, 8e6 also increases productivity and ensures regulatory compliance. Our standalone security solution achieves a dramatic reduction in the cost of hardware, subscriptions, maintenance, and support, and produces a substantially lower total cost of ownership. A Web filtering pioneer since 1995, the company maintains headquarters in Orange, California, with offices in Taipei and Beijing, as well as a network of channel partners worldwide. For more information, please call 888.786.7999 or visit www.8e6.com.