Facebook biggest danger for small businesses

One of the biggest business risks for small and medium businesses is from social media, reveals Panda Security's in its first annual Social Media Risk Index.

The study, which surveyed 315 SMBs with up to 1,000 employees throughout the month of July, revealed that 33 percent of these companies had experienced a malware or virus infection from social networks, with 23 percent citing employee privacy violations resulting in the loss of sensitive data. In addition, thirty-five percent of survey respondents that were infected by malware from social networking sites suffered a financial loss, with more than a third of those companies reporting losses in excess of $5,000.

Facebook is by far the most popular social media tool among SMBs. Sixty-nine percent of respondents reported that they have active accounts with this site, followed by Twitter (44 percent), YouTube (32 percent) and LinkedIn (23 percent).