Websense, a company focussed on web security and web filtering productivity software has made result available of their survey about surfing in the workplace and spywareinstalls. They interviewed about 700 people about their web use at work.

The survey reveals that men are more likely than women to engage in personal web surfing at work. 65 % of men with access to internet on their work uses this for personal surfing, aka non work-related surfing, versus 58% of women.

Similarly, men are more likely to spend more time on the internet at work for both work-related and non work-related tasks than women do. For example, men admit to spending 11.6 hours on average per week on work-related websites and 2.3 hours per week on non-work related websites. In comparison, women admit to surfing 9.0 hours on average on work-related and personal sites and admit to spending only 1.5 hours per week on non work-related sites only.

Websense found also a difference about the type of non work-related websites; men are more likely to visit weather-, sport-, investment- and blogwebsites.

The survey also reveals antoher thing: men and women hold different views regarding web-based threats such as spyware and when to involve helpdesk to remedy the situation.

The Employee survey also reveals that men and women hold different views regarding web-based threats such as spyware and when to involve help desk to remedy the situation.

Women who visit websites containing spyware are more likely than men to say that their work computer has been negatively impacted by spyware. (45 percent of women versus 35 percent of men surveyed). On that same note, women who have visited websites containing spyware are more than twice as likely as men to call their help desk or IT department if their computer was infected with spyware—64 percent of women have called their IT department for help whereas only 30 percent of men have done so.

Source: http://www.websense.com/global/en/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressReleaseDetail/?Release=0605161213

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