Using Twitter And Facebook In The Workplace Increases Security Risk, Says Study

A new global study suggests that virus and malware attacks within the workplace have increased because employees are using Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms in the office, largely for personal reasons.

Ponemon Institute, a research organization, polled 4,640 companies around the world, and more than half said that computer attacks had grown directly as a result of staff using social networks.

“Most attacks are socially engineered driven,” said Patrik Runald, a researcher at San Diego-based Websense, who suggests that users are often fooled into clicking on a link “which takes you to a page off of Facebook, where they trick you into downloading something.”

The report revealed that just 35% of firms have a social media policy in place – and of those that do, only 35% enforce it.

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