CorpComms Magazine

Social media are posing serious threats to reputation and increasing the risk of confidential information leaks, according to a survey by the Federation of European Risk Management Associations in cooperation with the Institute of Risk Management (IRM).

Taken together these two threats pose some of the most significant cyber risks to European businesses, said participants in the study.

For business in general, risk to reputation from social media was cited as a material risk by nearly 50 per cent of respondents and loss of confidential information through social media was stated by 20 per cent. Social media was ranked as a major cyber risk to companies alongside non-malicious operational IT risks, theft of customer information and malicious interference with IT systems.

In response to additional questions to FERMA members, one-third of 36 responses said they had already been concerned by a denigration attack and one-quarter of the 98 responses said their company had suffered an attack on confidential information.

The survey also found that around 14 per cent of risk managers work with their company's public relations teams to manage cyber risks, playing a bigger role than human resources (6 per cent) and investor relations (4 per cent) and that most organisations have a policy for their employees on the use of social media (65 per cent).

The responses came from a wide variety of industries, including telecoms, transport, energy, banking and transport, and many European countries, with the largest number from the United Kingdom.

FERMA vice-president Michel Dennery, said: 'The Web 2.0 tools expose us to a lot of risk. We have to take care of the really valuable information, the information that we use to make money, the information that gives us competitive advantage. It needs much more protection today because the environment is much more open.'

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet