Security company PixAlert audited over 125 corporate and public sector networks over a period of nine months and found that 26% of the 10,000 PCs scanned contained digital pornography or other images that it classed as ‘inappropriate’. The survey also found that over 12% of the 12,000 email accounts and over 5% of the 26,000 file server scanned demonstrated similar issues.

Of the images discovered, almost half showed full-nudity or sexual activity and a small number (0.3%) were deemed to contain illegal material. Over a third were Internet-sourced images, while 42% were attached to emails, of which 20% were outbound and 36% were sent internally.

While many corporate policies and contracts make such behaviour a sackable offence, few companies actually put in place a system that can detect, manage and eliminate the proliferation of such images, say the report’s authors.