Many organisations rate online security as a priority, but many employees share certain information on their chosen social network with everyone.
This was one of the key findings of the ITWeb/Kaspersky Lab Social Networking Threats Survey, which researched 304 respondents, the majority being business users from the IT, financial and banking, and telecoms sectors.
Just under 45% of respondents rated online security as a priority. Yet, 46.32% of respondents share certain information on their social network profile with everyone.
However, the survey shows that social network security awareness is rising among South African online users. Around 90.25% of respondents consider the security risks before installing an application or clicking on a link when visiting a social network.
In addition, 62.87% of the surveyed companies have an IT security policy in place that includes rules for social networking use.
Stephan van der Merwe, Kaspersky Lab's head of operations for Sub-Saharan Africa, emphasises the importance for all companies to have some sort of security policy in place.
“Not only can viruses be spread across company networks via malicious applications, but there's also a great risk of information being leaked that an employee might consider innocent.”
He adds that companies are liable for the security and integrity of their information, and companies that do not comply with governance laws such as King III, can face hefty fines.
The survey found that 50.16% of businesses are concerned about information leaking out of their organisations via social networks.
Although 70.25% of the respondents access their social network profiles via their mobile phones, 41.54% acknowledge that mobile access is less secure than from a desktop or laptop.
Online users accessing social networks via their mobile devices are key targets of malware attacks.
Van der Merwe explains that as smartphone adoption increases, so will mobile threats. He believes hackers will implement ways and means to exploit any type of smartphone for their own malicious gain.
“It's not necessarily a case of which is more or less secure, but it is important that both a user's PC or laptop and mobile phone is secure to avoid malicious exploits. As the saying goes, 'prevention is better that cure'.”
He adds: “People are using mobile applications and the mobile Internet to do their mobile banking, to access their social networks and to run their lives. This threat is increasingly more prominent than a few years ago.”
Van der Merwe also spoke at the ITWeb/Kaspersky Lab Social Networking Security Forum; held this morning in Sandton.
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