By Matthew Scott
July 19 , 2007 Employee misuse of e-mail, blogs, message boards and media-sharing websites posed a significant security risk for publicly traded U.S. companies last year, with 31.8% investigating a suspected violation of privacy or data protection regulations, according to a new survey.
A report on outbound e-mail and content security conducted by Forrester Consulting and Proofpoint, a messaging and data security firm, said 26% of the companies surveyed had their businesses impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information.
Experts familiar with data security say corporations risk the loss of company trade secrets and also leave themselves open to a variety of defamation or slander-related lawsuits when blogs and message boards are used inappropriately.
Proper use of e-mail continues to be a major problem at many firms, as one in three companies surveyed said they investigated a suspected leak of confidential or proprietary information last year. Furthermore, companies estimated, on average, that almost 19% of all outgoing e-mail contained content that poses a legal, financial or regulatory risk. Showing the seriousness of these matters, 27.6% of the companies surveyed reported terminating an employee for violating e-mail policies.
The survey also found that blogs and message boards have become a growing source of risk for companies. More than 19% of the companies disciplined employees for violating blog or message board policies, and more than 9% fired employees for such infractions.
Robert Scott, a partner at Scott & Scott, a Dallas-based IT compliance and management firm, said the ramifications of leaks of important data on blogs and message boards can be devastating. Mr. Scott said a company’s brand could be irreparably damaged if trade secrets fall in the hands of competitors. “The overall financial impact depends on what the secrets are, who’s getting them and what they are used for,” he said.
Mr. Scott also emphasized that blogs are here to stay, so companies need to monitor them vigorously. In addition to leaking sensitive information, employees making disparaging remarks about competitors or using blogs for sexually explicit or offensive material can also lead to liability and lawsuits.
“It’s a matter of enforcement and compliance,” he noted, “because the individual employees may not be aware or may be intentionally disregarding [policies].”