Employees Lured to Use Corporate Desktops to View Pornography Using Unlimited
Access to High-Speed Internet Connections and Streaming Media
SAN DIEGO, April 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Websense, Inc.
(Nasdaq: WBSN), the world's leading provider of employee Internet management
(EIM) software, today announced that the number of pornography Web sites in
the Websense(R) URL database is more than 17 times greater than it was just
four years ago -- surging from approximately 88,000 in 2000 to nearly
1.6 million sites today. This dramatic growth has been fueled by new
technology such as high-speed Internet connections and streaming media, as
well as innovative guerrilla tactics used by porn vendors to attract and keep
visitors at their sites. With unlimited access to a high-speed Internet
connection and streaming media at work, employees can be easily lured to
X-rated sites -- knowingly or unwittingly.
Nielsen/NetRatings estimated that 34 million people visited porn sites in
August 2003, about one in four Internet users in the U.S. According to
ComScore Networks, 37 percent of Internet-enabled employees in the U.S. have
visited an "X-rated" Web site while at work.
"As the availability of bandwidth and high-speed Internet connections
increases, so has the quality and quantity of online programming -- especially
in pornography," said Harold Kester, chief technology officer of Websense,
Inc. "Offering employees unlimited broadband connectivity and access to
streaming video is the equivalent of installing an adult theater on each
desktop."
Websense Enterprise(R), the company's leading Web filtering software, is
available immediately for corporations seeking to stop online pornography from
infiltrating corporate environments. Working in accordance with the URL
database containing more than 6.2 million Web sites, Websense Enterprise
allows organizations to institute adaptable policies to effectively manage
employee Internet use without going against the company's corporate culture.
For example, the flexibility of Websense Enterprise gives IT managers the
ability to block access to questionable Internet categories, such as
pornography, adult, and tasteless material, while allowing employee-sensitive
policies for managed access levels to non-work related sites such as shopping,
sports or news on a time-based quota, or before or after working hours.
Even employees who have no desire to visit pornography Web sites may do so
unintentionally because porn companies purchase expired domain names for
innocent-sounding Web sites, and use them to redirect Web surfers unknowingly
to their own X-rated sites. Victims of this tactic include the Dutch
Government and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. Porn vendors have also
successfully hacked into legitimate Web sites to repopulate them with adult
content. For example, in Feb. 2004, a New York Assemblyman's campaign Web
site was hijacked by a porn vendor named "Bob," and instead of the
Assemblyman's home page, voters got "a guide to help find the best porn sites
in the world."
According to the National Research Council, an additional tactic known as
"mousetrapping" is used by porn companies to automatically redirect surfers to
another Web site when they attempt to leave an adult site. This redirecting
can repeat dozens of times, and usually requires the user to shut down the
browser or restart the computer, which often leads to an increase in employee
complaints and IT help-desk calls.
"Today's online pornography companies are incredibly aggressive and do
whatever it takes to attract and keep visitors, from hacking into existing
mainstream sites to stopping surfers from leaving their sites all together,"
said Kester. "In addition to putting the company at risk for sexual
harassment or hostile workplace lawsuits, Internet porn clogs up valuable
company bandwidth as well as wastes IT management's time."
In addition, one of the most popular new ways to find pornography on the
Internet is by using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications such as
KaZaa and Grokster. In fact, a 2003 study by Palisade Systems of more than
22 million searches on file-sharing networks revealed that 73 percent of all
movie searches were for pornography.
To enable the filtering of network protocols such as P2P file sharing,
streaming media, instant messaging and other non-http traffic, Websense has
identified and categorized more than 225,000 software executable files in its
Client Application Manager(TM) database, allowing management of unauthorized
or harmful applications on the desktop, even with respect to the disconnected
laptop. This allows for a unique, layered approach to access management.
The threats associated with online pornography continue to be a
significant problem for corporations; however, what is lurking below the
surface in corporate networks can be equally as dangerous in the employee
computing environment. For example, emerging threats such as viruses spread
through P2P file sharing networks or infected attachments sent via instant
messaging, while not as clearly visible a threat as online pornography,
completely bypass normal security barriers and can leave companies exposed to
hackers. As the number of these types of new and blended threats increases,
Websense helps companies mitigate the security and legal liability risks,
while improving employee productivity and managing acceptable Internet and
application use policies.
About Websense, Inc.
Websense, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBSN), the world's leading provider of employee
Internet management solutions, enables organizations to optimize employee use
of computing resources with Web filtering in addition to mitigating threats
related to Internet use including instant messaging, peer-to-peer, and
spyware. By providing usage policy enforcement at the Internet gateway, on
the network and at the desktop, Websense Enterprise enhances productivity and
security, optimizes the use of IT resources and mitigates legal liability for
our customers. Websense, awarded PC Magazine's Editors' Choice and listed on
Forbes Magazine's 2004 "Top 25 Technology Companies," serves more than
20,600 customers worldwide, representing 16.4 million seats. For more
information, please visit http://www.websense.com.
(C) 2004, Websense, Inc. All rights reserved. Websense and Websense
Enterprise are registered trademarks of Websense, Inc. in the United States
and certain international markets. Websense has numerous other unregistered
trademarks in the United States and internationally. All other trademarks are
the property of their respective owners.
For further information, please contact Jennifer Culter of Websense, Inc.,
+1-858-320-9511, jculter@websense.com.
SOURCE Websense, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.websense.com
CONTACT:
Jennifer Culter of Websense, Inc.,
+1-858-320-9511, jculter@websense.com
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