I’ve written before about the word replacement game, and the power it has to defang even the most tediously trite and blatantly fearmongering stories which sometimes burst forth in the media, exposing them for the plonking warmed-over and obvious drivel that they are.

Here’s the latest news, from Clearswift, mildly edited by myself. The methodology for my edit is explaned below.

London, UK – 22 March 2007 – British business managers may be slightly perturbed today by the results of new research from content security specialists Clearswift, which has found more than a quarter of young British office workers are spending three or more hours a week when at work on internet web sites, with a massive 42 per cent of young office workers discussing work-related issues on those sites.

The survey, commissioned by Clearswift and conducted by YouGov, polled more than 1,000 business employees and illustrates how widely used internet communication has become for chatting about work among workers aged 18-29, signalling the potential risk for leakage of confidential company or government information.

The survey highlights the considerable amount of time today’s young office workers spend surfing web sites from office PCs, with 39 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 admitting to accessing web sites several times a day.

Younger workers are more likely to take access to these sites for granted, with 59 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 believing that employees should be entitled to access this type of Internet content from their work computer for personal reasons – while 63 per cent of workers aged over 50 believing that there should be no such entitlement.

“It’s clear from the research that organisations need to take a closer look at the web sites that their employees are using at work to ensure sensitive business issues or information are not being discussed,” Clearswift’s Chief Operating Officer, Ian Bowles, said.

“However finding the balance between harnessing so-called internet’ technologies for business benefit and maintaining strong security is key. For example, it isn’t difficult to envisage an employee posting unauthorised comments about their organisation’s product or service quality issues on a website – causing major brand damage – but at the same time, banning all web site access is not the answer as it cuts the organisation off from conversations with partners and customers,” he said.

While most office workers were aware of their company’s policy on employee use of the Internet (only 14 per cent did not know if one existed or not), 27 per cent said their organisation did not allow access to web sites. A worrying 14 per cent said their company had no policy at all.

“There’s clearly heavy usage of web sites going on within most businesses and for those businesses without a policy in place, these results should hopefully provide a wake-up call,” Mr Bowles said

“Whilst organisations have woken up to the security risks with email traffic, this awareness is not always extended to the bi-directional communications which are common in internet,” says Katie Gotzen, Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Yet, web sites carry an even greater risk for data leakage and brand damage than email, because anyone can potentially access them”.

While data leakage via employees is a primary concern, malware writers have recently targeted web sites to distribute their handiwork. For example, MySpace has been targeted with specific malware with variants of the Zlob trojan appearing and altering users’ pages, while trojans such as Trojan.mespam which manipulate IP traffic highlight the shape of things to come.

“We are urging businesses to take a sensible approach to the risks posed by web sites. In today’s competitive environment, businesses cannot simply lock down access to internet services: instead, they must harness sophisticated content security solutions to protect themselves without preventing the business from enjoying the benefits of internet,”Mr Bowles said.

The trick: all references to of Web 2.0 have been replaced with Internet; all references to social media, blogs or specific sites have been replaced with web; then the content is mildly grammatically fixed for flow. I’ve left the technical bit about trojans which manipulate IP traffic because to my ear, tempered with 20 years of IT security, it sounds either like a misapprehension, or a case of “get a real operating system”.

The far sexier and more terrifingly modern original can be seen on the Clearswift website; but I feel the text is both more accurate and more proportionate in the form I have edited.

The really short version of the above: If you are not looking looking after your security properly, then you are at risk. This used to be the problem with FTP sites, it still is with Web sites, some day we will all be indulging in some World-Of-Warcraft-alike metaverse environment in order to do business, and it will still be a problem.

Get used to it.

Via Philippe Borremans.