Survey Reveals 38% of IT Managers Ignoring Web 2.0 Risks

FaceTime Communications' fifth annual survey showed social media and Web 2.0 applications have been adopted by 99% of end users to support business processes, even though 38% of IT professionals believe there is no social networking present on their networks. Web chat also featured in 95% of organizations, yet was recognized by only 31% of IT Managers showing vivid differences between IT estimates and reality. IT Managers also reported an increasing requirement for the logging of IM (40% of IT respondents) and content posted to social networks (27% of IT respondents).

The survey shows that use of Internet applications has grown from being present in 78% of enterprises in 2007 to 99% of enterprise networks, with tools ranging from public IM, Skype, file sharing, web conferencing, and IPTV becoming commonplace. Some 53% of end users indicated that newer Web 2.0 tools are "better than those provided by my employer."

Social networking use for business has grown exponentially. While 95% of users now use social networking for business reasons, 61% said they use public social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube every day, up from 51% in 2008,. Fifteen percent use these sites "constantly throughout the day." The use of tools such as Twitter for work purposes has risen almost sixfold in 12 months and now is used by 78% of end users.

While malware attacks through Web 2.0 applications continue to be the largest concern for IT professionals – 69% of organizations reported at least one Web 2.0-related attack – worries about employee productivity with relation to Web 2.0 have fallen significantly, with just 24% reporting productivity concerns as an issue, down from 74% in 2007. Fourteen percent report data leakage over social networks and 18% indicate incidents occurring over social networks where disciplinary action was required.

A trend is beginning to emerge in relation to archiving and eDiscovery for Web 2.0 content. Sixty-six percent of organizations have been provided with guidance on retaining email traffic, this falls to 40% for IM and chat, but the requirement to retain content posted to social networks has appeared for the first time. Legal counsel has provided 27% of organizations with guidance on the retention of this content, with a further 42% of IT professionals anticipating that this will happen "shortly".

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