Social networks 'draining' corporate resources

Facebook is a big drain on enterprise resources

The majority of business internet traffic is heading to Facebook, according to a new web analysis from managed security firm Network Box.

The company said that just under seven per cent of the 13 billion URLs accessed through businesses in the first quarter of this year were to the social networking site.

YouTube was also singled out as a big drain on enterprise resources, accounting for 10 per cent of all corporate bandwidth, the report said.

Simon Heron, internet security analyst at Network Box, said that the figures validate separate research from the firm which found that IT managers are concerned about staff using social networking sites. Just under half described it as a 'major concern'.

"Our figures show that IT managers are right to be concerned about the amount of social network use at work," he said.

"There are two real concerns here: firstly that employees will download applications from social networks and put security at risk; and secondly the amount of corporate bandwidth that appears to be being used for non-corporate activity."