Social Media, a double edged sword; take care you don't cut yourself!

A flash poll conducted by enterprise security specialists Symantec, points to a growing trend:  enterprises engaging in social media, falling victims to incidents that result in serious consequences... from loss of reputation to loss of confidential information.

The 2011 Social Media Protection Flash Poll, found the top three social media incidents the typical enterprise experienced over the last year were: Employees sharing too much information in public forums (46 percent), the loss or exposure of confidential information (41%), embarrassment and damage to brand reputation ( 40 %).

Interestingly, use of social media for personal use ( 45%) is almost the same as for business use ( 42%) which shows that users today, seamlessly move from one role to the other -- which is why many enterprises are both apprehensive and encouraged about what social media can do for them. The survey documented 9 social media “Incidents” in the last year. The cost of such incidents totalled more than $ 4 million.

Said Vijay Mhaskar, vice president, Information Management Group, Symantec, during a conference call with Asia-Pac media: “It is now important to archive and discover the millions of records employees are creating by email, social media, SharePoint and file systems. But it is equally important, not to inhibit the business and productivity benefits of social media and collaboration tools while reducing their risk potential”.

While announcing the results of the flash poll, Symantec has announced the availability in India of the latest version of its email and content archiving software Enterprise Vault 10, that now has the ability to archive all social media interactions for compliance and eDiscovery purposes. It also features Symantec's data loss prevention technology to analyze Microsoft Exchange email content and metadata to help determine the archiving and retention strategy for all messages. Email content and metadata are automatically classified and assigned the appropriate archiving and retention policy
More details: http://bit.ly/r7pQcM  Aug 16 2011