‘Tis the Season to Manage Employees’ Online Shopping Sprees, Warns St. Bernard Software

The ease and popularity of Internet retail is putting companies at risk of employee productivity loss and phishing attacks this holiday season, according to new research data from St. Bernard Software, Inc. (OTCBB:SBSW), a global provider of security solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In the latest security survey conducted by St. Bernard of 298 organizations, 76% reported that they do not block employee Internet access to online shopping sites during work hours. This puts organizations at risk for specific security risks such as phishing attacks, as employees purchase goods from online retailers using work email addresses.

Online holiday shopping at work continues to rise, as employees take advantage of their organizations’ high-speed Internet connections to shop for the upcoming holiday season. In fact, St. Bernard’s iGuard Database team predicts that SMEs should expect a minimum 50 to 75% average increase in non-business-related ‘seasonal’ Internet usage by the end of 2006. In addition, a Shop.org survey, conducted by BIGresearch focusing on ‘Cyber Monday’ 2005, reported that in the 2005 holiday season, more than one third of consumers (37%), or 51.7 million people, said they planned to use Internet access at work to browse or buy gifts online1.

iGuard is the industry’s only 100% human-reviewed URL database that powers St. Bernard Software’s dedicated Internet filtering appliance, iPrism. iGuard researchers review URLs around the clock to ensure that the URL database is updated with the latest sites and that they are accurately categorized. To address the dynamic and constantly changing security threats, iPrism’s spyware, malware and phishing database categories receive hourly updates.

“With the boom in pro-service and small e-micro-retailers, employees have a wider array of sites to surf for holiday gifts and general consumption goods,” said Vince Rossi, president and CEO at St. Bernard Software. “On top of the productivity concern, SMEs also need to be aware of the seasonal security issues associated with online shopping. In fact, our iGuard Database team has identified a rise in phishing attacks throughout the year and expect they will increase rapidly through the remainder of the quarter.”

According to the October 2006 PhishTank report, out of 7,061 suspected phishes submitted to the PhishTank site, 3,678 were confirmed. Another 2,505 went offline before they could be validated by the site2.

“It is fairly common to see an increase in employee shopping during the holiday season, but the burden of this activity can be especially hard on SMEs,” said Rossi. “The SME community typically does not have the luxury of dedicated IT resources to spend recovering lost productivity or resolving security issues. We encourage SMEs to prepare themselves for a busy holiday season and remind them to take the appropriate precautions to prevent any downtime or security risks.”

More information on how companies can manage the use of employee Internet access can be found at: http://www.stbernard.com/products/iprism/products_iprism.asp.

About St. Bernard Software

St. Bernard Software (OTCBB:SBSW) is a global provider of security solutions, including Internet and email filtering appliances, patch management and data backup solutions. St. Bernard Software also provides the SME market with a complete line of hosted security solutions, including email, IM and URL filtering services.

Deployed across millions of computers worldwide, the company’s award-winning products deliver innovative security solutions that offer the best combination of ease-of-use, performance and value. Established in 1995 with headquarters in San Diego, CA and an international office in the United Kingdom, St. Bernard Software sells and supports its products directly and through solution partners worldwide. For more information, please visit www.stbernard.com.