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London, UK (18th August 2008) – FaceTime Communications announced today the results of its survey into instant messaging (IM) and social networking usage at work. Amongst other things, the survey revealed that more people had “friends” on LinkedIn than real life, 42% of malware sent over IM was not picked up by current anti-virus protection and accidentally sending inappropriate messages to managers instead of loved ones and co-workers was one of the most frequent mistakes.

Nearly 77% of respondents to the survey were able to access instant messaging at work, a third of whom admitted to sending an IM to the wrong person. Sending kisses, checking on the whereabouts of loved ones and negative comments about co-workers and superiors have all ended up in a manager’s chat window; with one respondent admitting to sending a joke of an explicit sexual nature accidentally to the Financial Director.

Although only 5% of respondents had sent confidential information to the wrong person, anecdotal evidence also taken in the survey revealed that one such error resulted in the company’s telephony and internet access being used by someone else at the organisation’s expense. Nearly 16% of respondents said that they had clicked on an attachment or a link within an IM that had turned out to be malware. 42% of those said their current anti-virus protection did not catch it.

Nearly three quarters of people surveyed could access social networking sites at work, but only two thirds said that their employer’s policy allowed them, showing that adequate policy enforcement tools were not in place. The most popular sites by far that people used were LinkedIn and Facebook, with 33.1% of respondents saying they had the most friends on LinkedIn, compared with 32% that said real life friends topped their list.

Although only a small minority of people admitted to posting confidential or negative work related comments on social networking sites, despite this being an anonymous survey, a lack of forward thinking was evident in faux-pas anecdotes. One respondent posted to Twitter “Woohoo! I’ve finished for the day” at 4pm, only to receive a call from a colleague asking how he was enjoying the sunshine and another stated that he was an eager job seeker to his current, and rather surprised, employer.

“Enabling IM and other types of web 2.0 communication can bring great benefits to companies, but IT departments need to consider the risks involved and make sure that security, policy control and compliance are introduced as standard best practice,” comments Nick Sears, VP EMEA of FaceTime Communications. “Although the survey highlights that many organisations have still not deployed adequate measures of control to protect itself from IM and social networking misuse, it also shows that education amongst users should not be neglected either. As someone very succinctly said in the survey – I always check twice to see if I’ve been naughty or nice. It’s good advice that everyone should heed.”

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About FaceTime Communications
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by IDC for four consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by more than 900 customers – including nine of the 10 largest U.S. banks – for security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM, Reuters and Jabber.

FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit http://www.facetime.com.

Media Contact:
Sara Claridge
Marylebone Media Relations
sara@marylebone.co.uk
+44 (0) 20 8133 5572
+44 (0) 7968 626838 (mobile)


Contact Name: Sara Claridge
Role: Director
Company: Marylebone Media Relations
Contact Email: click to reveal e-mail
Contact Phone: +44 (0) 20 8133 5572
Company Website: http://www.marylebone.co.uk

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social networking | security | malware | facetime | im |

Categories:
it/internet/software

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