The typical enterprise experienced nine social media incidents, such as employees posting confidential information publicly over the past year, with nearly all suffering negative consequences, according to poll by Software security firm Symantec.
About 94% of the incidents are suffering negative consequences including damage to the organisations’ reputations, loss of customer trust, data loss and lost revenue.
The 2011 Social Media Protection Flash Poll revealed that social media is pervasive within the enterprise, and IT departments have good reason to be worried.
The risk of publishing confidential information on social media platform increases as organizations are increasingly sharing business related information on these to communicate with customers, partners and employees, the poll said.
The Symantec poll found 82% of enterprises are at least discussing implementing archiving solutions to collect, preserve and discover sensitive business information transmitted through social media, along with other measures such as establishing social media usage policies and employee training programs.
However, less than one-fourth have actually implemented any of those technologies and policies.
The survey also found that the top three social media incidents the typical enterprise experienced over the last year were employees sharing too much information in public forums (46%), the loss or exposure of confidential information (41%), and increased exposure to litigation (37%).
It further stated more than 90% of respondents who experienced a social media incident also suffered negative consequences as a result, including reduced stock price; litigation costs; direct financial costs; damaged brand reputation/loss of customer trust; lost revenue.
Symantec is recommending businesses to define how to use social media and train employees regarding appropriate content to post, like all corporate communications.
It has also recommended organizations to identify and understand legal or regulatory requirements specific to their industry, and implement policies to address regulations that call for retention of social media content.
According to the security firm, organisations should consider deploying an archiving offering that enables the automatic capture and retention of social media content, especially if your industry is highly regulated.
Businesses should also implement a data loss prevention offering to provide another layer of protection to prevent confidential and proprietary information from moving out of the company onto social networks.
