WALTHAM, USA: Bit9, Inc. has announced the results of a survey on the ubiquity of unauthorized software in IT companies and government systems.

According to the survey of more than 250 IT managers, 77 percent of the respondents have software usage policies in place, yet an alarming 37 percent have found unauthorized software running on more than half of their computers.

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The survey targeted organizations in excess of $1 billion. It revealed that while a majority of organizations have policies prohibiting unauthorized software, the policies are not being enforced in many organizations.

With software usage policies so frequently disregarded, it's no surprise that only 34 percent of survey respondents report feeling confident that in 2009 their business will be protected from harm caused by unauthorized or malicious software.

Additional findings from the Bit9 Unauthorized Software Survey include the following:

Unauthorized or malicious software causes up to 25 percent of user downtime

Since the majority of respondents identified themselves as representing companies with over $1 billion in revenue, eliminating up to a quarter of total employee downtime by proactively blocking unauthorized or malicious software offers a significant opportunity for cost-savings.

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The most problematic unauthorized software is spyware (49 percent) and malicious software not caught by antivirus (44 percent).

Malware that has evaded reactive security poses a major problem and highlights the shortcomings of traditional, reactive security approaches such as signature-based AV, which only protects against known malware, leaving companies open to unknown, targeted or zero-day attacks.

29 percent of respondents do not have a software usage policy that prohibits employees from downloading software to their computers at their discretion.