Although several companies are regulating social networking sites, employees are finding ways around the blocks of security, according to a new survey by Trend Micro.
The survey included 1600 users in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, found the world of social networking at work increased by 19 per cent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010. The largest increase in social networking in the workplace over the past two years has been found among users in the United Kingdom, which had an increase of 6 percent, and Germany with an increase of 10 percent.
“Social networking is an extremely important tool for both personal and professional relationship-building. And while most companies’ concerns about social networks in the central office in the loss of employee productivity, they can not understand is that many social networking sites are built on technologies interactive give unlimited opportunities for cybercriminals exploit end users, stealing personal identities and professional, and corrupt corporate networks from malicious software, “said David Perry, global director of education for Trend Micro.
“With the right security solutions and guidelines for social networking implemented, there is no reason why companies choose to allow their employees the opportunity to visit these sites should be too exposed to these risks.”
Excluding Japan, there were no major differences between users and small businesses from large companies, but the investigation revealed laptop users are much more likely than users to visit the local sites social networking. Overall, the use of social networks through laptops rose 8 percent from 2008 to 2010. In the U.S., it rose 10 percent and in Germany, up 14 percent.
In 2010, 29 percent of laptop users, compared to 18 per cent of desktop users surveyed said they visited these sites at work. In Japan, 2010, employees of small businesses were much more likely than large companies to visit social networking sites – 21 percent of small firms compared to 7 percent of large companies.
For all countries surveyed in 2010, users of phones that can connect to the Internet outside the corporate network are more likely to share confidential information via instant messaging, e-mail and social applications that media which are always connected to the corporate network.
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