Everything you need to know about email and web security (but were afraid to ask)

Inappropriate content, employees behaving badly

Then there are also pressing legal, productivity and reputation issues:

• What if an employee inadvertently defames someone or binds the company to a damaging contract by email?
  
  
• What if someone takes you to an employment tribunal claiming a hostile working environment? Damages in discrimination cases are potentially unlimited.
  
  
• Do you want your employees downloading pornography or other inappropriate content on work computers? It'll probably happen – the majority of visits to pornographic sites occur during office hours.
  
  
• How much productivity can you afford to lose to 'cyber slacking' – employees browsing non-work related websites on company time?
  
  
• What would happen if an employee sent sensitive information to a competitor or disclosed confidential information to an unauthorised person by email? Would you be able to enforce company policies, or even track the breach? One of the eight principles of the Data Protection Act is that personal information must be 'secure'. Reckless disclosure is a criminal offence.

These are important questions. The problems behind them are not the result of outside attack but reputations still suffer, clients still leave and careers still crash and burn. Companies need to write and enforce acceptable use policies, and they need technology to help them do it.