The report shows that DOI employees are spending thousands of hours a week visiting non-work-related Internet sites, including shopping, gambling and sex-related content. More than 70,000 employees at the DOI have access to the Internet each day and had been doing so without the filtering and reporting technology in place to prevent or monitor access to a wide variety of Web sites.
Inspector General Earl E. Devaney's investigation into its employees' Internet use highlights the need for consistent monitoring. While some sites are clearly inappropriate and can be categorically blocked, there are thousands of others that fall into a nebulous middle ground -- sites that can be used for legitimate purposes at work, but can also be abused. Through monitoring, IT administrators can quickly identify overuse, the outright misuse of questionable Web sites as well as user intent in exploring the web. Monitoring uncovers stealth methods, such as the use of on-the-fly Internet proxies, to bypass filters and helps organizations such as the DOI ensure they have closed all the gaps and that employees are in compliance with Internet Acceptable Use Policies.
Finally, the report reveals that when an organization cobbles together multiple systems that do not communicate with each other, the result can be spotty coverage with gaping holes that allow employees with limited technical prowess to easily bypass the existing filters.
