CIOs more concerned than ever about social media and data loss

Survey finds security breaches due to social networking more pressing than ever

A new survey from email security firm Proofpoint finds more organisations are dealing with data loss and security breaches due to employee use of social media sites. Proofpoint polled 261 IT decision makers at organisations with more than 1000 employees. Respondents were asked about the frequency of data loss events in the past 12 months, as well as their concerns, priorities and policies related to email, the web, social media and other sources of data loss risk.

The survey found 20 percent of companies polled had investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information via a post to a social networking site. In many instances, the events have been severe enough to lead to job loss or disciplinary action, with seven percent of companies reporting termination of an employee for social networking policy violations. Another 20 percent disciplined an employee for not following social networking policy.

read more...