14 DAY TRIAL // 'I'm a pro, I know what I'm doing,' a famous quote says. Well, this time it's somehow different because the IT professionals ignore major security measures and publish their information on very large and popular websites. According to ITPro, a study conducted by Microsoft and security vendor Facetime revealed that 35 percent of the IT professionals posted their birth date on the web while 27 percent of them uploaded even more valuable information such as addresses. In comparison with the professionals, the employees are more careful with their private details as only 29 percent of them join web networks.
"We assume IT pros are more technical and aware of things like phishing, but our research suggests the contrary," said Stephen Lamb, IT security expert at Microsoft, according to ITPro. "People don't appreciate the risks. We need to raise awareness that things people believe are only open to a group of friends are in the public domain," Chris Boyd, security research manager at Facetime, added for the same source.
Obviously, the most important threat is represented by the social networking websites which attack millions of consumers every day. For example, Facebook said at the time of signing the deal with Microsoft that about 250,000 new users are creating accounts on its social network. In fact, it's well known that large websites such as MySpace and Facebook are real threats when it comes to the information provided by the registered users because some malicious persons could use the details for dangerous activities.
"We [IT pros] think we know it all, and we don't put enough thought into security. I had a call from an IT professional who was caught by a MySpace music group hack. This guy said 'I know what I'm doing' but he switched his brain off," the Facetime expert added.