LONDON -- Websense, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBSN), the world’s leading provider of employee Internet management (EIM) software, today announced that the number of pornography Web sites in the Websense® URL database is more than 17 times greater than it was just four years ago—surging from approximately 88,000 in 2000 to nearly 1.6 million sites today. This dramatic growth has been fuelled by new technology such as high-speed Internet connections and streaming media, as well as innovative guerrilla tactics used by porn vendors to attract and keep visitors at their sites. With unlimited access to a high-speed Internet connection and streaming media at work, employees can be easily lured to X-rated sites—knowingly or unwittingly.

Nielsen/NetRatings estimated that 34 million people visited porn sites in August 2003, about one in four Internet users in the U.S. According to ComScore Networks, 37 percent of Internet-enabled employees in the U.S. have visited an "X-rated" Web site while at work.

“As the availability of bandwidth and high-speed Internet connections increases, so has the quality and quantity of online programming—especially in pornography,” said Frank Coggrave, UK Regional Director of Websense, Inc. “Offering employees unlimited broadband connectivity and access to streaming video is the equivalent of installing an adult theatre on each desktop.”

Websense Enterprise®, the company’s leading Web filtering software, is available immediately for corporations seeking to stop online pornography from infiltrating corporate environments. Working in accordance with the URL database containing more than 6.2 million Web sites, Websense Enterprise allows organizations to institute adaptable policies to effectively manage employee Internet use without going against the company’s corporate culture. For example, the flexibility of Websense Enterprise gives IT managers the ability to block access to questionable Internet categories, such as pornography, adult, and tasteless material, while allowing employee-sensitive policies for managed access levels to non-work related sites such as shopping, sports or news on a time-based quota, or before or after working hours.

According to the National Research Council, an additional tactic known as “mousetrapping” is used by porn companies to automatically redirect surfers to another Web site when they attempt to leave an adult site. This redirecting can repeat dozens of times, and usually requires the user to shut down the browser or restart the computer, which often leads to an increase in employee complaints and IT help-desk calls.

“Today’s online pornography companies are incredibly aggressive and do whatever it takes to attract and keep visitors, from hacking into existing mainstream sites to stopping surfers from leaving their sites all together,” said Coggrave. “In addition to putting the company at risk for sexual harassment or hostile workplace lawsuits, Internet porn clogs up valuable company bandwidth as well as wastes IT management’s time.”

In addition, one of the most popular new ways to find pornography on the Internet is by using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications such as KaZaa and Grokster. In fact, a 2003 study by Palisade Systems of more than 22 million searches on file-sharing networks revealed that 73 percent of all movie searches were for pornography.

To enable the filtering of network protocols such as P2P file sharing, streaming media, instant messaging and other non-http traffic, Websense has identified and categorized more than 225,000 software executable files in its Client Application Manager™ database, allowing management of unauthorized or harmful applications on the desktop, even with respect to the disconnected laptop. This allows for a unique, layered approach to access management.

The threats associated with online pornography continue to be a significant problem for corporations; however, what is lurking below the surface in corporate networks can be equally as dangerous in the employee computing environment. For example, emerging threats such as viruses spread through P2P file sharing networks or infected attachments sent via instant messaging, while not as clearly visible a threat as online pornography, completely bypass normal security barriers and can leave companies exposed to hackers. As the number of these types of new and blended threats increases, Websense helps companies mitigate the security and legal liability risks, while improving employee productivity and managing acceptable Internet and application use policies.

Websense Inc.