Sophos software will block games from corporate networks

INSECURITY FIRM Sophos is offering companies the ability to control and block computer games that may worm their way onto their networks.

Employees playing computer games on company PCs and laptops waste valuable IT management resources and can severely impact on overall business productivity, the company alleges. It says it can help stamp out such behaviour.

It also says that over 90 per cent of the people it asked are clamouring for such a tool.

Sophos' reckons its software can block popular games from 15 major games publishers, including Eidos, SEGA and Electronic Arts. Others will follow, it said. Minesweeper and Freecell may slip under its iron drawers, however.

"Many games are readily accessible and easy to hide, meaning some employees will have no qualms about playing several times a day," said Graham Cluley, chief mouthpiece at Sophos. "More man hours have probably been spent playing computer games in the office than it took to build the Panama Canal," he adds

In fact 30,000 men died building the Panama Canal, so that's one analogy that backfires a bit.

The software will be slipped into Sophos Anti-Virus and Application Control package next year.

We'd like one for Fudo, please Graham. µ