Chinese lead in watching porn at work: Survey

New York: When it comes to watching porn at work, the Chinese are way ahead of others.

At 19 per cent, China has the worst record for viewing adult content sites on a work device, with Mexico (10 per cent) and the Britain (nine per cent) not far behind, a global research study has revealed.

Results from the survey, conducted by Blue Coat Systems with 1580 respondents across 11 countries, a market leader in enterprise security, found that universally, workers visit inappropriate web sites while at work despite typically being fully aware of the risks to their companies.

"While the majority of employees are aware of cyber security risks, in practice, most still take chances," Hugh Thompson, CTO for Blue Coat, said in a statement.

Pornography continues to be one of the most popular methods of hiding malware or malicious content.

"Even though awareness is high of the threat posed by adult content sites, workers are still visiting these potentially dangerous sites," Blue Coat Systems said in a statement.

In Singapore, 37 per cent of respondents used new applications without IT department's permission, compared to 33 per cent in Britain and 30 per cent in India and Mexico.

On the flip side, Australia and France were the lowest offenders at 14 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.

Nearly two out of five employees (41 per cent) use social media sites for personal reasons at work.

"It is a serious risk to businesses as cyber criminals hide malware on shortened links and exploit encrypted traffic to deliver payloads," the findings showed.

The research, conducted by independent research firm Vanson Bourne for Blue Coat, found the actions of employees at odds with their awareness of the growing cyber threats facing the workplace.

"In addition, this risky behaviour can leave both sensitive corporate and personal data open to being stolen and used immediately, stored for future use, or sold into a thriving black market where compromised corporate and personal identities are traded globally," the authors wrote.

The consumerisation of IT and social media carry mixed blessings to enterprises.

"It is no longer realistic to prevent employees from using them, so businesses need to find ways to support these technology choices while simultaneously mitigating the security risks, the authors suggested.