How to Prevent Social Networking Threats on Private Data?
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, they’re all making their way into day to day corporate life. Users share information, sometimes too much, with others. While denying the value of online networking or its potential of driving new business your way is not our goal – we do use this blog, Twitter and Facebook! – the threat is very real and it’s there. As in all things data security related, it’s either an external threat or an inside one. It’s either malware targeting social media sites, or it’s your employees who, out of lack of proper training or attention, or worse, knowingly and willingly, post classified information on such sites.
How to prevent it? The see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil method is the first one you should stop thinking about. You can’t shut this door, we’ve stated this before, it might be crucial to growing your business. Restrict access through limited time and limited networks? Highly irrelevant. It takes a couple of seconds to post, and no matter how restrictive you are, information can spread through other users.
I was reading a Dark Reading article on the matter the other day. They quoted a survey conducted in February by Sophos showing that 62.8% of companies were concerned that employees were sharing too much information on social networks, while 66% believed employees using social networking sites endanger corporate security.
Very true! And what can you do? The solution is threefold. First, take care of the files your employees show. Make sure you restrict access to them. A white listing system would probably help you. This is only a temporary fix. Then, educate your staff. Tell them what’s fair game and what isn’t. And then, you should really start monitoring their moves. There’s a fourth solution: pray for the best outcome 
