Social networking criticised as companies lack trust in the security of Web 2.0

A report commissioned by Adobe and released by Forrester Research has highlighted the fact that knowledge workers in companies remain more than a little worried about the security of Web 2.0-based collaborative working systems.

Credant senior vice president Michael Callahan, said: “The Forrester research confirms the findings of research announced at the ShmooCon 2009 conference in Washington this week, which found that security on social networking sites is significantly wanting, despite the take-up of the technology by internet users.

“This conclusion, from researchers Nathan Hamiel and Shawn Moyer, has been confirmed by a Forrester report into knowledge worker collaboration, which found that the take-up of Web 2.0 services within companies is a lot lower than many people think.”

Moyer described social networking sites as ‘a perfect storm of social engineering and bad programming', and added that Web 2.0 technology is now a launch pad for attacks against internet users.

Callahan said: “The good news is that there are security solutions out there that can solve most, if not all, of the loopholes that these new technology platforms create. Central to this, we believe, is the use of powerful encryption. Once companies start to use these technologies, they will be able to effectively reap the benefit of Web 2.0 systems.”

Figures showed that only 15 per cent of European knowledge workers make use of instant messaging and just 13 per cent use web conferencing. While 47 per cent are confident about the security of sharing e-data within their organisations, only 21 per cent are confident when sharing e-data outside of their company.

See original article on scmagazineus.com