Spyware infections hitting productivity
- Author:
- Bill Goodwin
- Posted:
- 11:58 13 Dec 2006
- Topics:
- IT Workforce | Security
Spyware infections are damaging the productivity of employees and IT helpdesks, businesses claim.
In a survey of 100 firms by Webroot, 45% reported an increased load on their IT helpdesk and 32% said employee productivity had been impacted as a direct result of spyware infections.
Nearly a fifth of UK firms claim to have lost sensitive information through spyware infections on their network PCs, and 22% said that spyware had threatened sensitive business activities.
A third of firms claimed that spyware infections had disrupted business activities, while 11% claimed that infections had led to lost sales.
In once case Webroot identified a Trojan designed to capture online banking passwords and usernames. An analysis of the server showed it captured details of 5,000 bank accounts in a week.
The survey showed that 64% of firms used gateway anti-spyware filtering. Firewalls were used by 93% of organisations, URL filtering by 72%, while 55% of firms locked down desktops.
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