Facebook, YouTube a Hit Among Employees

If you think you are the only one who slyly accesses all those social networks and entertainment websites while you are at your workplace, you are wrong. There are millions like you.

Security services company Network Box says that more business Internet traffic goes to Facebook than to any other Internet site. Analysis of 13 billion URLs used by businesses in the first quarter of 2010 show that 6.8 percent of all business Internet traffic goes to Facebook - an increase of one percent since the last quarter of 2009.

The analysis also shows that more business bandwidth (as opposed to "hits") is taken up by YouTube videos than anything else. 10 percent of all corporate bandwidth is taken up watching YouTube videos, an increase of two percent since the last quarter of 2009.

This analysis comes shortly after the company researched 250 IT managers about their biggest security concerns over the coming year (research was conducted in April 2010). The top answer was "employees using applications on social networks" while at work, with 43 percent of respondents saying this is a major concern. In a separate question, 36 percent of respondents are concerned about malware passed via networks such as LinkedIn or Twitter, and employees trusting (and clicking on) links sent by contacts within their networks.

Top five websites visited by businesses in Q1 2010 were:

1. Facebook - 6.8 percent of all traffic
2. Google - 3.4 percent of all traffic
3. Yimg (Yahoo!'s image server) - 2.8 percent of all traffic
4. Yahoo! - 2.4 percent of all traffic
5. Doubleclick - 1.7 percent of all traffic

The top five bandwidth busting websites are:

1. YouTube - 10 percent of all bandwidth used
2. Facebook - 4.5 percent of all bandwidth used
3. Windows Update - 3.3 percent of all bandwidth used
4. Yimg (Yahoo!'s image server) - 2.7 percent of all bandwidth used
5. Google - 2.5 percent of all bandwidth used

Simon Heron, Internet security analyst for Network Box says, "There are two real concerns here: firstly that employees will be downloading applications from social networks and putting security at risk; and secondly the amount of corporate bandwidth that appears to be being used for non-corporate activity."