Of most interest to employees are details of their boss's private life, in particular inter-office relationships. Of all those coming across this information, not one person respected the privacy of the sender or recipient and passed the information on to other members of staff.

Details discovered by cyber-snoopers about themselves caused the greatest upset, but due to the manner in which they came across the information, only six per cent felt able to confront their boss about the content of the message. Of those that did, 10 people claimed they faced disciplinary action as a result of accessing company confidential information. The remainder felt the discovery had inadvertently destroyed their relationship with colleagues and five of those interviewed had left a company within three months as a result.

Only seven per cent of the workers interviewed said they had used encryption technology to protect their e-mails.

Paran Chandrasekaran, Managing Director of Indicii Salun, commented: "E-mail has made people much freer communicators, but it has also made us very careless about how we protect confidential information. Traditionally, businesses have used locked filing systems in which to store financial and personnel records. With e-mail, many businesses are leaving this same information to be read freely by anyone accessing the recipient and sender’s PC or intercepting the e-mail in transit.

"People are inherently nosey and it is a strong willed person that adverts their eyes from something potentially exciting on a corporate system. This research proves that you are only moments away from a professional or personal time bomb each time you leave your PC unattended."

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Richard Powell, Shout99