According to a recent Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI) survey of 400 small- and medium-sized business owners, 56% believe employees’ social media use poses a cybersecurity threat, yet 82% allowed employees to use personal devices for work and 64% said their employees access social media on work devices. As the COVID-19 pandemic has forced more employees to work from home and use personal devices for business, 36% of employers said that they were considering updated or new policies governing social media use to address the risks. Currently, 56% of the 1,059 U.S. workers also polled said that their company had not issued updated rules for social media on devices used for work.
Even for companies with established or updated guidelines, more than 20% of employees said that they ignored or worked around their company’s cybersecurity guidelines daily or weekly. CRI recommended that companies address these risks by: providing company-owned devices to all employees, developing comprehensive policies that address personal use of work devices, and conducting ongoing employee education focused on the risks of social media use on work devices.