In a poll of over 1,000 computer users at small to medium-sized businesses, Sophos found that only 13% of respondents thought that employers should not be held responsible for preventing spam containing violent, pornographic and other offensive spam from reaching their employees. Over half of those polled felt that employers should take preventative action against offensive spam.
"It is irresponsible for employers not to protect their staff from unsolicited e-mails containing offensive, pornographic and racist content - it's practically asking for a Human Resources fiasco," said Carole Theriault, security consultant at Sophos.
"More than half of those polled agreed that employers need to take action, but whether the majority of employers are actually doing anything about spam is another matter - Sophos research shows that only about a quarter of all SMBs have anti-spam software in place," she added.
Besides offending and distracting personnel, unfiltered spam also wastes valuable time and network resources.
The UK Government has taken some steps to tackle spam, and in December last year brought into force new rules to deal with unsolicited commercial e-mail and other privacy issues in electronic communications.
Unfortunately, these Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations generally only apply to individual users, which means that spam sent to office e-mail accounts does not breach the Regulations, provided proper sender and contact details are given and opt-out requests respected. (Although it is worth noting that the collection and use of the e-mail addresses being targeted by spam may well breach the Data Protection Act.)
"So long as there is money to be made from sending unsolicited e-mail, spammers will continue to flog their services and wares - whether content is unsavoury or not," said Theriault.
But there is some good news for employers: a recent report by security firm MessageLabs suggests that the number of inappropriate and potentially sensitive images sent as e-mail attachments via office e-mail systems is actually decreasing, possibly as a result of more firms using e-mail management solutions.