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01 February 2010
Posted in
Social Media
In a recent survey conducted by Sophos, they have found that many people find social networking sites to be somewhat of a security risk. They have seen that the reported spam and malware found on social networking sites is on the increase.
In the last year alone, a massive 57% of internet users report being spammed via social networking sites, a 70.6% increase from last year’s survey. As well as that, 36% of internet users have claimed that through social networking sites, they have received malware. This is also a steep increase of 69.8% on last year’s figures.
And CEO’s of major companies also see social networking sites as a massive security risk, because of their employee’s usage of the sites. Out of 500 organisations surveyed by Sophos, 72% think that social networking sites are a danger to the wellbeing of their company, with 60% of those that have given Facebook the title of ‘biggest threat’, followed by Myspace, Twitter and then LinkedIn, in that order.
The senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley, commented that Facebook was the biggest threat as it is the biggest social networking site on the net, and also due to Facebook’s internal privacy settings. He has tagged the new privacy settings they rolled out late last year as a ‘backwards step’, as it allowed people to find out much more about people and who they worked for and other company information that most would rather was private.
Surprisingly, Cluley does not think that employees should be banned from using social networking sites, and thinks there is a much better solution, as social networking can be a vital part of modern businesses. Instead of placing a total ban, we should adopt some ‘social security’ when we are using these sites, in the words of Graham Cluley.
