Two thirds of Australian IT security managers spend between 30 minutes and two hours per day on non-work related web sites.
Two thirds of Australian IT security managers spend between 30 minutes and two hours per day on non-work related web sites.
According to a survey conducted by WatchGuard Technologies at last week’s Security 2010 conference and exhibition staged in Sydney, 39 per cent said they could not live without access to news and sports web sites while at work.
Scott Robertson, regional director ANZ at WatchGuard Technologies, told HR Leader that there are definite benefits of allowing use of non-work related websites.
“Most employers have tools in place so that staff are not viewing malicious content, but get an information hit or having a social release while working on a computer does improve efficiency.”
Thirty-five per cent of respondents could not live without access to blogs and online communities and 22 per cent cherished access to banking and finance web sites while at work.
“Managing staff internet usage requires HR involvement to set general expectations, and they can then work with IT to manage the trends that appear across the workforce going forward,” said Robertson.
The survey also found that 48 per cent of IT security managers will focus on the provision of remote access security as their top priority in the year ahead with application security and threat detection the next two areas for urgent consideration.
