CorpComms Magazine

More business Internet traffic goes to Facebook than to any other Internet site, according to a new survey by security services company Network Box, which analysed 13 billion URLs used by businesses during the first quarter.

The findings revealed that 6.8 per cent of all Internet traffic within businesses went to Facebook, which was double the amount that went to Google. Traffic to Facebook has risen by one percentage point since the last quarter of 2009.

The analysis also revealed that more business bandwidth is taken up with YouTube videos than anything else, with ten per cent of all corporate bandwidth taken up by employees watching videos on the site. This has risen by two percentage points since the final quarter of last year.

Network Box's findings come shortly after they company polled 250 IT managers about their biggest security concerns, and found that 43 per cent were worried about 'employees using applications on social networks' while at work. It was the top concern among IT managers, although 36 per cent were concerned about malware passed through networks such as LinkedIn or Twitter and employees trusting, and clicking on, links sent by contacts within their networks.

Simon Heron, Internet security analyst for Network Box, said: 'The figures show that IT managers are right to be concerned about the amount of social network use at work. There are two real concerns here: firstly that employees will be downloading applications from social networks and putting security at risk; and secondly the amount of corporate bandwidth that appears to be being used for non-corporate activity.'

The top five websites visited by businesses in the first quarter were:

Facebook - 6.8 per cent

Google - 3.4 per cent 

Yimg (Yahoo!'s image server) - 2.8 per cent 

Yahoo! - 2.4 per cent

Doubleclick - 1.7 per cent

The top five bandwidth busting websites are:

YouTube - ten per cent of all bandwidth used
Facebook - 4.5 per cent

Windows Update - 3.3 per cent 

Yimg (Yahoo!'s image server) - 2.7 per cent 

Google - 2.5 per cent of all bandwidth used

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