Nearly 95% of enterprises who suffered social media incidents over the past year, had to face negative consequences including revenue loss, reveals a new report by computer security company Symantec.
The company has published the results of its 2011 Social Media Protection Flash Poll which examined how organisations protect themselves from negative consequences of using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other online forums.
The survey included 1,225 respondents in 33 countries in North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
The poll revealed that the typical enterprise experienced nine social media incidents, such as employees posting confidential information publicly over the past year.
It also said that 94% businesses who suffered social media incidents also suffered negative consequences including damage to their reputations, loss of customer trust, data loss and lost revenue.
Symantec said it is more important than ever for companies to have controls in place to capture social information to comply with open records requests, industry regulations such as the supervision requirements under the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) 10-06 amendments, and the eventuality of an eDiscovery request.
Employees sharing too much information in public forums (46%), topped the social media incidents the typical enterprise experienced over the last year, according to the survey.
Loss or exposure of confidential information (41%) and increased exposure to litigation (37%) completed the top three causes of social media incidents for enterprises.
More than 90% of respondents who experienced a social media incident also suffered negative consequences as a result, including: reduced stock price (average cost: $1,038,401); litigation costs (average cost: $650,361); direct financial costs (average cost: $641,993); damaged brand reputation/loss of customer trust (average cost: $638,496); and lost revenue (average cost: $619,360).
Symantec’s Information Management Group senior director of product management Greg Muscarella said, "Businesses know how important it is to protect and preserve email, IM, spreadsheets and other unstructured information.
Now they need to recognise that information flowing through social networks is equally important."
