According to a new report by FaceTime, an Internet applications control specialist, the number of data leaks and malware incidents continues to rise as employees continue to embrace the whole Web 2.0 thing within the workplace. In fact, FaceTime says, the use of such applications is so widespread that some 60 percent of all companies surveyed now have at least eight of them in use on their corporate networks.
"For all four years that FaceTime has commissioned this survey, end users have claimed they have the right to download and use whatever applications they choose to help them do their jobs. This year's study also reveals their social media habits have extended into the workplace and may be contributing to security and data leakage incidents," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and product management at FaceTime.
Unfortunately, one side effect of this growth would seem to be that IT managers are now reporting an average of 34 security incidents, including data leakage, every month. Another, at least for the larger enterprise, is the small matter of the costs associated with malware are now averaging out in excess of $125,000 per month according to the report.
Some of the other findings that leap out of the report include:
79% of employees use social media such as Facebook and YouTube at work for business reasons
51% access social media sites at least once per day
73% of IT managers report at least one security incident as a result of Internet application usage
37% of companies report an instance of non compliance with corporate or regulatory policy
27% report incidents of accidental or unintentional data leakage
Others have also concluded that Web 2.0 is a cause for concern but it is not all bad news for Web 2.0 fans though, IDC recently reported that Web 2.0 was good for business.