A survey has shown that visiting social networking sites during working hours is costing UK businesses.

A survey by Global Secure Systems (GSS) has revealed that the use of social networking sites amongst office workers during their working day costs UK businesses £6.5 billion in lost revenue every year.

The company, an IT security solutions provider, has found that, on average, office workers spend at least 30 minutes every day on social networking sites at work, equating to three weeks a year.

A similar survey carried out between employers showed that the majority were concerned about how to manage the use of these websites at work – sites which can comprise 15-20% of a company’s current bandwith.

David Lacey, member of the BCS Security Forum Strategic Panel, commented: “Organisations have a very long way to go in getting to grips with the risks presented by social networking. Lost productivity is the tip of the iceberg. The threat of social engineering to hijack sensitive information is real and growing. And current acceptable use policies are far from acceptable: they are poorly written, maintained, communicated and enforced.

“There are also some big, political issues that have to be addressed, such as how far to police or trust staff, and how to maintain thought leadership across highly networked groups of staff.”

GSS has also quoted research by Computerweekly.com, which detailed that 63% of companies plan to monitor staff web use, and that 17% plan to ban visits to these sites during the working day.