Employees are posing a security risk to large companies by forwarding their sensitive company email to Web-based personal email accounts offered by the likes of Google and Yahoo. Management, tipped
off by the often-paranoid techie gatekeepers of their network, is rightly concerned that corporate secrets could slip through the cracks. Imagine a Google competitor or partner forwarding sensitive
company information to their Gmail account?
This is a battle of best intentions: Employees do this for the sake of productivity, because in many cases, they can't access their
corporate intranet once they leave the office.
In others, corporate networks require special software and multiple passwords for access; some companies even give their employees a card
with a security code that changes every 60 seconds. To avoid the hassle, they forward their mail to other email applications, causing management more than a little anxiety. Use of other email
applications potentially runs afoul of federal mandates that all company email be archived.
While there have been no major corporate disasters as a result of email forwarding, experts say
the risks are real. So don't do it.
Read the whole story at The New York Times »