Security Concerns Holding Businesses from Incorporating Social Networking in Operations

According to a survey statistics published in COMPUTERWORLDUK on May 1, 2009, 50% of business organizations avoid using social networking technology in view of security concerns. The survey was commissioned by Webroot Software and was presented at the Infosec 2009 conference in the last week of April 2009.

The survey highlights that nine out of 10 business organizations had made plans to incorporate Instant Messaging (IM), Wikis, Social Networking and other technologies into their operations.

Moreover, merely 15% of surveyed said that they had sought out security issues, while 25% expressed confidence to move forward with their plans for social networking.

Gerhard Eschelbeck, Chief Technology Officer, Webroot, said at the Infosecurity event in London that it was quite obvious that businesses were worried about the security of collaborative technology as the chances of malware insertion in the website were very high, as reported by CIO on May 4, 2009.

However, Eschelbeck recommended to firms that they should embrace collaboration, but primarily focus on security.

Security researchers have also advised to businesses that they should install web security programs which can scan the content for malicious code and prevent users from visiting harmful websites. Social networking websites such as Facebook usually take proactive measures to raise awareness about security risks but they could also do even better to protect their users from phishing attacks, spam and malware.

Generally, the problem doesn't arise from the host site like MySpace and Facebook, but from the third party applications integrated into the website. Now the question before these websites is how they can secure third party applications for use. In fact, a SQL injection flaw was found in the Facebook applications in February 2009, underscoring this problem.

The responsibility of securing and managing the server lies with the developer and not on the host. As the developer applications are hosted on the third party servers, the developer should fix the patches if found in the third-party applications, said security experts.

In addition, Sophos has revealed that two-third of system administrators are concerned about the sharing of too much information on social networking websites by employees, indicating to the great threat.

Related article: Securities Push Up A Must For Web Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 5/12/2009