June 2000

• Attachments to E-mails Can Contain Damaging Viruses

The ILOVEYOU worm was contained in an attachment activated when opened by employees. Worried about the damage another virus or worm could do to their computer system/network, many companies are either blocking e-mails containing attachments or not allowing employees to open any attachments sent from outside the company.

•Protecting against Intellectual Property Loss

According to an FBI/Computer Security Institute Computer Crime and Security Study, 273 companies reported a total of $66,708,000 in proprietary data losses in 1999.

• Limiting Liability in Employee Lawsuits

E-mail can be used as evidence in sexual harassment and racial discrimination suits and employers may face litigation for allowing e-mails that are racist, sexist, or otherwise inappropriate on company systems, in effect creating allowing a hostile work environment.

• Ensuring Customer Credibility and Company Reputation

Publicity about a company’s computer systems going down can tarnish the company’s reputation and cause customers to lose faith in the company’s ability to provide consistent service. Customer losses can occur if a virus, worm, or other malicious code is sent vy e-mail from your company to the customer.

• Maintaining Employee Productivity

Less driven employees, who once were found loitering at the employee water cooler, can actually seem productive because they seem to be working at their desks when they’re actually slowing others’ productivity and shrinking the organization’s bandwidth by clogging the company e-mail system with jokes, pictures, and cartoons.

• Improving Network Performance

Not only can frivilous e-mails waste company time and money, they can also damage your computer network system performance. Memory used to store useless jokes, personal messages, and cartoons can slow individual desktop systems and the network, making everyone less productive.