According to a new report published by Sophos today, Facebook now poses the greatest security risk to companies among the leading social networks. Of the 500 firms which were polled, 60 percent “felt that Facebook was the biggest danger”. Why is Facebook such a security threat? For a number of reasons including malware, spam and phishing, employee behavior which increases risk, and potential loss of data made public on Facebook.

It’s not exactly surprising to find that the majority of executives believe Facebook is the biggest security risk among other social networks, as the vast majority of individuals are on Facebook. In terms of monthly active users, Facebook is approximately ten times larger than Twitter, although the two are often compared side by side. With Facebook’s rapid growth, how are companies supposed to protect themselves. Sophos makes the following recommendations:

Social networking sites are now a vital part of many marketing and sales strategies. Therefore, they cannot be blocked—but they cannot be allowed to drain company resources or used as vectors for data loss or malware penetration. A unified approach providing sensible, granular access control, secure encryption and data monitoring, and comprehensive malware protection is mandatory for businesses to operate flexibly in the modern socially networked world.

Another interesting finding from the report was that the United States continue to serve as “the main hosting ground for malicious webpages.” The company thoroughly explores the numerous security threats to users in their latest report which you can download here if you are interested in more information.