MessageLabs Intelligence Finds Dramatic Increase in requests for Streaming Media during World Cup

Posted on behalf of Dan Bleaken, Senior Malware Data Analyst, Symantec Hosted Services
Your company’s internet link is precious. Not only is it expensive and limited but it is a vital business
tool. Yet recent MessageLabs Intelligence analysis shows that companies can lose around a quarter of their internet bandwidth to employee web misuse, streaming media and spam. Imagine if you had to give up a quarter of your office space for non-work activities; it’s inconceivable. But when it comes to internet bandwidth, most companies don’t even know about the loss, let alone take steps to prevent it.
The MessageLabs Hosted Web Security Service (WSS) blocks millions of web requests every day to protect users from accessing content that is either non-compliant with company policy, or malicious.  In a typical week in 2010 the WSS performs about 107 million blocks (up from 90 million/week in 2009), on 5-10 million distinct URLs, for several thousand clients.  That’s tens of thousands of blocks per client per week on average.   
99.96% of blocked URLs are policy based.  Of these, by far the greatest proportion is for advertising, mostly pop-up ads or auto-forwarding to ads.  Also, the WSS blocks sites related to streaming media (e.g. video), online games, adult/sexually explicit material, violence, tasteless and offensive material, weapons, criminal Activity, gambling, illegal drugs and so on.  Clients have full control over what (continue reading...)