Clearswift Survey Shows Organizations Susceptible to Data Leaks through Social Media Sites.

Growing Popularity of Web 2.0 Sites Put Corporate Information at Risk and Drains Productivity

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Clearswift

Survey Results highlights:

* 87 percent of office workers access Web 2.0 sites each week, with 63 percent accessing the sites one or more times a day;

* 51 percent of office workers spend one or more hours a week using and accessing Web 2.0 sites when at work;

* 46 percent of office workers have discussed work-related issues on social media websites;

* 71 percent of office workers use Web-based email at work for personal reasons; and

* 50 percent of office workers believe that employees should be entitled to access Web 2.0 Internet content from their work computer for personal reasons.

According to a recent workplace survey conducted by Clearswift, 46 percent of office workers have discussed work-related issues on social media sites and services; the most popular being blogs, forums/chat rooms, instant messaging and Web-based email applications. This despite the fact that among the organizations that have an "acceptable use policy" regarding employees' use of the Internet, nearly 29 percent do not allow the use of social media sites or services at work. Clearswift included blogs, forums, Web mail, instant messaging, social networking sites, podcasts, online video sites, wikis, photo sharing sites and Second Life among the social media sites and services on the survey.

"The survey demonstrates not only how widely popular these new Web 2.0 sites and services are becoming, it also raises a red flag for organizations on how susceptible they are to data leaks through the Web," said Ian Bowles, COO, Clearswift. "It's clear from the research that organizations need to take a closer look at the social media sites that their employees are using at work to make sure that sensitive business issues and information is not being discussed, posted or leaked."

The survey also highlights that while data leaks are a concern, productivity may also be a problem. In fact, according to the survey, nearly 43 percent of office workers in the United States access social media sites and services for personal reasons from their work computer several times each day, with 51 percent spending one or more hours a week on the sites. Thirteen percent spend an average of five or more hours per week on the sites and another five percent aren't sure exactly much time they are using the sites or services.

More than 71 percent of office workers use Web-based email at work for personal reasons, and it was also the Web application used most often, 22 percent, for discussing work-related issues. Another 46 percent regularly access Wikipedia during work hours, while YouTube, Flickr, instant messaging and blogs are also popular destinations and services accessed using work computers.

"More than half of the people we surveyed feel that they are entitled to access the Internet and social media sites at work, and 27 percent of them work at organizations that don't have an acceptable use policy or don't know if one exists," added Ian Bowles. "We have become way too casual with the Internet; this despite the propagation of viruses, bugs, spam and scams that plague the Internet and can harm an organization. We urge businesses to take a sensible approach to the risks posed by the Internet and social media sites. While businesses cannot simply lock down access to Web 2.0 services, they should harness content security solutions to help protect their data, employees and organization without preventing the business from capitalizing on the real benefits of Web 2.0."

The survey was sent to 827 people representing a variety of industries. Twenty five percent of those surveys were employed by organizations with more than 10,000 employees and 26 percent with between 1,000-9,999 employees.

About Clearswift

Clearswift simplifies content security.

Our products help organizations enforce best-practice email and web use, ensuring all inbound, outbound and internal traffic complies with stated policy and external regulations.

Our content filtering solutions make it easy to deploy, manage and maintain data leakage protection for email and web traffic, enabling compliance with regulations such as GLBA and HIPAA and industry standards such as PCI. Our inbound protection capability stops up to 100% of spam, spyware and malware.

Integrated solutions for Exchange and Domino traffic ensures that common policies can be applied on all email and web traffic, into, out of and within your organization.

More than twenty years of experience across 17,000 organizations, including highly sensitive military network security, has helped us raise content security standards while simplifying security management.

www.clearswift.com