Blogging a security threat says cyber guardian

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 02 November 2005 10:00

Business IT - Security

Blogging has joined the growing list of IT security threats as employees sound off on the web, according to an online security firm.

According to email and web content security specialist, Clearswift, disgruntled, negligent or malicious employees are using blogs to share their complaints about bosses, work colleagues and customers, at the same time breaching confidentiality and damaging reputations.

According to Clearswift, its Email Use at Work survey revealed that 30% of Australian workers spend more than one hour every day using company email and web servers for personal communications.  This now includes posting updates to personal blogs for anyone to read.

Clearswift says anti-virus and spam filtering isn't enough to protect organisations from potential damage by blog.

The anti-virus vendor says companies need to consider restricting employee access to specific sites such as blogs or to simply disable the posting functionality.

According yo Clearswift, organisations may also need to consider whether it is acceptable for employees to discuss work-related information on personal blogs posted in their own time.

'Careless blogging can damage company and personal reputations.  It can also disseminate information which should be kept confidential,' according to Peter Croft, managing director Clearswift Asia Pacific.

'Each workplace needs to define what is appropriate for them.  Then they need to make clear to employees what is appropriate and what isn't."

'Companies must establish policies to protect their brand as well as their employees,' said Croft.  'It would be corporate suicide not to guard against external attacks on the web, so why not guard against threats from within?'