50% of SMBs Run Without Social Network Filtering

A newly conducted study shows that there is not enough being done at SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) so far as safeguarding themselves against their employees' activities on social-networking websites is concerned.

The survey, which SpamTitan Technologies conducted and on 200 SMBs, discovered that all the companies let their staff access the Internet along with a few applications pertaining to social-networking websites at their office premise. 76.4% of respondents admitted that it was important to have web filter in place, nearly half (49%) reported that they didn't employ any filtering tool.

Nevertheless, according to SpamTitan, the survey's outcomes also suggest that a minimum of half of SMBs are adopting some measures of protection from online attacks through social networks. Further, 16% of SMBs which haven't yet adopted any measure are thinking of adopting some during the coming twelve months.

Said CEO Ronan Kavanagh of SpamTitan, SMBs were apparently aware of the risks as well as wholly inclined towards safeguarding themselves during the course of time. Nonetheless, that even then provided social networking assaults a considerable amount of scope to drop malicious programs like keyloggers on the networking sites, leading to costly consequences, he added, as per the news published by infosecurity on May 5, 2010.

Earlier in February 2010, a report from the Department of Parliamentary Services outlined the security problems that inflicted government agencies and individuals because of the increased utilization of social networking. Evidently, it mainly dealt with cybercrime along with security policy pertaining to Web 2.0.

Explained the security researchers, the growing dependence of Web 2.0 on personal interactions and personalized data has provided cybercriminals a fresh platform from where they carry out their massive networks of online fraud and ID theft.

Clearly, among the scenarios of cybercrime and security dangers, phishing attacks involving fake e-mails for stealing personal information to commit ID fraud is one instance. Personal information is also harvested through social networking sites like Web 2.0, peer-to-peer and instant messaging.

Other security dangers are viruses and malware that could cause DDoS attacks on users' computers, while malware is frequently used in combination with tactics of social engineering.

Related article: “Loopholes did not cause online banking thefts”: ICBC

» SPAMfighter News - 5/17/2010