Research commissioned by Internet security specialist Webroot suggests that
small- to mid-sized businesses are becoming more vigilant when it comes to their
employees’ use of social networking sites. The survey of more than 1,000
businesses from the United States
and United Kingdom
with up to 500 employees finds that most respondents (81 percent) have an employee Internet
policy. Half of respondents (50 percent) say employees are not permitted to visit any social
networks via a company computer or laptop.
The report finds that, just as new variants of the Koobface social networking worm
continue to evolve, so do company policies. In fact, 42 percent of respondents have implemented an Internet-use policy as a result of an employee’s inappropriate use of a social
networking site, and more than one-third (34 percent) deployed a Web security
product to monitor Internet use and enforce policies.
Four in 10 of those polled (39 percent) have an Internet-use policy that
prohibits employees from visiting Facebook, while 30 percent block access to
Twitter and 27 percent prohibit access to video-sharing sites such as YouTube.
Webroot sponsored the online survey of businesses with 500 and fewer
employees between Oct. 29 and Nov. 3. Invitations to participate were emailed
by e-Rewards to panel members in the United
Kingdom and the United
States. Respondents qualified for the survey
if they were purchase decision makers for e-mail or Web security. At the 95
percent confidence level, the margin of error is ±3.0 percentage points for the
full sample of 1,087 respondents, ±3.6 points for the U.S.
sample of 751 and ±5.4 points for the U.K.
sample of 336 respondents.
For more, read the eWeek article Half of SMBs Block Employee Access to Facebook: Report.