The reports showed heinous employee Internet abuse ranging from the criminal to the truly hilarious and inappropriate. Additionally, the competition showed “egregious employee Internet abuse by an increasing number of corporate employees abusing the Internet for personal gain and putting their organizations at risk of legal liability,” according to an 8e6 spokesperson.
The most serious violations of a company’s Internet acceptable use policy demonstrated the increasing need for filtering and reporting tools on every PC in a corporate network.
The most outlandish anecdotes include an employee who installed a wireless router and switcher to his corporate-provided home Internet to resell wireless service to his neighbors. Another employee used a personal laptop computer plugged into a government corporate network to run a personal auction site selling government property, while another employee used his corporate work station to sell illegally pirated movies.
The largest section of respondents cited employee searches for pornography as the most significant abuse of corporate Internet access. Most responses had employees viewing and sending (and sometimes creating in their offices) pornography to other employees through their corporate IT infrastructure.
One employee used company bandwidth to run his own porn site from the office. After hours, he would sneak in models to pose in his boss’s office. Another male employee ran personal live sex shows from his office, while another portly respondent was sending out nude photos of his 400-pound plus body to co-workers.
“When 8e6 first started in this business more than 10 years ago, Internet filtering was used primarily to block access to inappropriate content," said Paul Myer, president and COO of 8e6 Technologies. "Today with fat pipes and powerful web tools at employees' disposal, it's not difficult for them to launch side businesses selling wares or even company secrets, all powered by the company network. The good news for companies is that filtering technologies have evolved with the maturation of the Internet, and detailed reporting is now standard fare, allowing companies to meet stringent regulatory requirements and zero in on web use by employee.”
