IN order to reduce security threats from social networking sites, businesses should ban them, AVG says.
According to AVG, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were first viewed as a distraction from work but have now been embraced as a form of mass communication.
“While serious business roles exist for these tools, for security reasons, companies should still monitor how employees interact with them,” AVG says.
A professor in the Computer Science department at Columbia University, Herbert Thompson has warned about the dangers of revealing personal information on social networks.
"People are posting indiscriminately – they throw weird information out there. What has happened is there has been a growth in the technology for information sharing but not a commensurate education in what information we should share," he says.
AVG (AU/NZ) marketing manager, Lloyd Borrett claims in addition to developing high-level policies for the use of social networks, there are some simple guidelines that managers can provide to staff to minimise the risks.
"The fact that they are so user friendly makes them dangerous. You don't mind your friends knowing where you live, or when your birthday is, or what your mother's maiden name is, but if the bad guys manage to hack into your friend's account, then they find out that information as well," Borrett says.
"If you want to keep yourself safe on these sites then you should use a unique user ID and password for each one, or at least a unique password."
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