SOCIAL NETWORKS
Singapore - Employers in Singapore are increasingly concerned about how the use of social networking sites would affect their corporate networks but only one third have addressed the perceived threat.
According to a new survey released Wednesday by Symantec, more than two-thirds of 100 Singapore companies said their corporate networks are threatened by the use of social networking sites, blogs and podcasts. The CIOs, CISOs and IT decision makers in Singapore said the increasing numbers of employees accessing corporate networks on personal devices has added to the security risk. At least 76% of respondents were unprepared in managing and governing the use of social networking tools.
But Unmesh Deshmukh, director of Symantec's endpoint security sales for the Asia-Pacific region, told ZDNet Asia that companies should not ban the use of social media. Deshmukh said companies should instead look at ways to increase productivity using social networking tools but ensuring their networks are protected at the same time. Besides understanding how social media is used at work and identifying where and how sensitive data is stored, Deshmukh suggested that companies should "establish standards and data security policies to manage, govern and enforce compliance across the corporation".
"And in addition to that, create a culture where people understand what is expected of them as an employee," Deshmukh said.
But companies are taking their time in assessing and identifying what confidential information is and where it is stored. Deshmukh said the lack of manpower and complex security situations have slowed down the implementation of data protection. Half of the local companies polled have incurred lost revenue, direct financial loss and damaged customer relationships as a result of information leakage from poor security.
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