InfoSec 2011: Can social media be tamed?

Enterprises can only rely on their policies and common sense to mitigate risks

Attendees to this year's InfoSec conference in London were told that social media in the enterprise is always going to be anarchic, and corporate controls are limited in their ability to temper this.

This was the opinion expressed by a panel of security experts debating the subject at the event.

"It is complete anarchy as opposed to corporate control," said Steve Whittle, CTO at the sales and marketing firm The Cobra Group.

Whittle described Facebook and other social networking sites as fantastic tools for their business, but insists managing them can be a problem.

"We have taken the view that trying to monitor and control all the networking sites is pretty futile," he said.

"There is an element of relying on policy, but also an element of relying on our workforce's common sense," he added.

"I know this is risky, but at the same time you can't monitor everything."

Adrian Price, head of information security at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), agreed with Whittle, and explained that social networking also brought anarchy into his organisation.

The MoD do utilise social media and networking sites, but it is heavily moderated with stringent policy.

"With a global workforce of 300,000 you have to expect a level of anarchy," said Price.

"However, the concept of social media is here to stay and it is good if used properly. You have to rely on your policies as being as tight as they can be."

David Cripps, chief information security officer for Investec Bank, disputed this point and argued that in the financial industry there is limited scope for social media.

"My personal view is that it's chaotic because staff are immature with the technology, and they don't appreciate exactly what they are doing," said Cripps.

"We work in a heavily regulated industry, and if we accepted the anarchy the FSA would come knocking at our door very quickly," he added.

"A policy is great to go to somebody when they have done something wrong, but it is not going to stop them from doing it in the first place."