While more Australian employees spend time browsing the internet at work than other countries they tend to spend less time on non-work related browsing, according to a new survey.

Employee internet management provider, Websense, has released the results of its 2005 Australia Web@Work survey. The survey is part of the 2005 Asia Pacific/Latin America study which surveyed the following eight regions regarding internet use in the workplace: Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Hong Kong, India, and Mexico.

The survey found that more Australian employees (96%) spend at least some of their working week accessing non-work related internet sites from a corporate-owned PC or laptop than those from any other country surveyed. However, at an average of 3.6 hours per week spent on these activities, Australians are spending less time surfing at work than many of their neighbours such as India, which averaged more than 5.3 hours per week. They also spend less personal time than their IT managers give them credit for, given that Australian IT managers surveyed estimated an average of eight hours personal surfing time per employee.

According to the 2005 Australia Web@Work survey, companies may not have the level of protection necessary to ward off emerging internet threats. For example, 96% of Australian IT managers are at least somewhat confident that their company's current antivirus software is able to stop viruses from attacking their company's network, yet 46% say their company's computer systems have been hit by web-based viruses such as JS Scob.

Australia scored in the middle of the field on most security issues and at 44% showed a high awareness of phishing (the second highest behind Brazil). However, despite this awareness, 28% of Australian employees surveyed said that they had given out financial, personal or confidential data, such as corporate network passwords, as a result of a phishing attack.  In comparison, 62% of IT managers in Australia believed that their employees have clicked through the URL on a phishing attack.

Also of concern, 58% of the Australian employees surveyed acknowledged using their office PC or laptop to send or receive attachments through instant messaging. While 18% were aware that they had visited sites that contained spyware, 72% of the Australian IT managers said their workstations have been infected by spyware at some point.

When employees were asked who held responsibility for use of a corporate PC when taken outside the office, on average 51% of respondents from all eight countries believed that they (employees) were ultimately responsible. Employees in Australia were mixed on laptop responsibility, with 32% placing responsibility with management, 40% stating it was the employee's, 22% nominating the IT department, and 6% remaining unsure.

The most frequent personal usage of a corporate laptop remained the same across each of the countries surveyed: banking and shopping, downloading media such as music or movies, and storing personal photographs.  Seven percent of those surveyed admitted accessing peer-to-peer file sharing sites with a work-owned laptop, while another 7% acknowledged sharing the laptop with family and friends.

At 30%, more employees in Australia admitted to uploading or downloading non work-related MP3s or video/movie clips onto their PCs or work laptops than any other region. 

Interestingly, 28% of Australian IT managers believed that employees were using laptops to download unlicensed software, while only 4% of Australian of employees admitted to this. 

The Sites Australians Visit While at Work The top five non-work related websites visited by employees from all countries surveyed were: news (51%), online banking (38%), personal email sites such as hotmail (37%), travel sites (22%), and sports and shopping sites (15%). 

Australians led the survey in their fondness for online auctions, with 46% acknowledging access to sites such as eBay while at work. For all other countries the results were much lower, scoring between naught and 14%. In addition, Australians rated second highest in their use of the web for online shopping at work (24%).

Personal banking and management of finances were also popular pastimes among Australian employee respondents. More Australian employees stated that they accessed investment or stock purchasing sites while at work, than any other participating country. Similarly, Australia led the results for the highest number of employees (64%) accessing personal banking sites while working. Other site categories where Australians led were sports (32%) and travel (58%).

Pornographic sites continue to draw visitors, with 8% of all employees surveyed in Australia admitting that they had visited such a website at work, either by accident or on purpose. IT managers' perceptions differed once again with 14% suspecting that employees were using corporate PCs or work-owned laptops to look up adult content.