IT staff are the worst e-mail abusers among all professions,
with 69% of the sample admitting that they would open “suspicious”
e-mails and 42% willingly circulating them to colleagues and
friends. Lawyers are little better. These are the findings of an
NOP survey commissioned by SurfControl.15 Aug 2002
Approximately 61% of employees in the legal profession are unable to resist opening suspected inappropriate e-mails sent to their work e-mail address, according to the results from SurfControl, a content security solutions company.
A further 23% of them circulate the offensive material to colleagues and friends, risking disciplinary action and damage to their firm’s reputation.
The survey found that 80% of those interviewed in the legal profession realise that personal comments or material sent from their work e-mail address is the equivalent of writing and posting the message on department letterhead paper.
Nearly 30% of the sample indicated junior members of legal staff as being the worst e-mail abusers in their office.
The survey examined the attitudes towards e-mail use of 100 professionals from each of the UK’s seven largest employment sectors: accountancy, manufacturing, the civil service, financial services, legal, retail and IT.