13 June 2008

Enterprises Continue to Incur Risk

John Sterlicchi

A new study revealed more US enterprises than ever before are taking action against leaks in email.

In its fifth annual Outbound Email and Data Loss Prevention survey, a record 44 percent of US companies said they investigated a suspected email leak of company secrets while 26 percent said they fired people for violating email policies.

Twenty-three percent of US companies said their business was impacted by the exposure of sensitive or embarrassing information in the last 12 months.

The study found 50 percent of companies did not have an adequate training and education program in place to tell their employees just what the rules were regarding sensitive information.

Of the 301 US businesses that responded, 114 companies perform regular audits of outbound email content, 36 investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information through a posting to a social networking site and 102 had email subpoenaed.

Other findings include 27 percent of companies had investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information from lost or stolen mobile devices in the past 12 months.

Eleven percent of companies surveyed disciplined employees for improper use of blogs/message boards, 13 percent disciplined employees for social network violations and 14 percent disciplined employees for improper use of media sharing sites in the past 12 months.

The study concluded companies are stepping up their employee monitoring efforts.

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