Business security 'put at risk by social media'

The confidential information held by companies can be accidently threatened by employees sharing sensitive material via email and social media.

According to research conducted by business security experts IDC and commissioned by the RSA, security incidents caused by company insiders happen more frequently and could have a more negative impact than malicious insider attacks.

Nicki Wallace, global solutions marketing manager at RSA, said that management skills need to improve as social networking websites such as Facebook are "a huge problem" for organisations looking to protect their data from accidental security risks, while a lot of confidential information is lost when sent in emails.

Ms Wallace explained that social network users in the workplace are sometimes "sharing corporate information that they're probably not even thinking about" and that media losses through email are inevitable unless encryption controls are put in place.

The IDC white paper also shows a misalignment of security concerns by a majority of chief executive officers who give higher priority to protecting against malicious insider attacks over investing to prevent more frequent and potentially more damaging accidental insider security incidents.