New Wave of Employment Liability Insurance Claims on the Horizon

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SALT LAKE CITY — Some people on social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn may be a little too social.

The e-mail security vendor Proofpoint recently released its sixth report on Outbound Email Security and Data Loss Prevention.

“Seventeen percent, nearly one in five large U.S. companies, actually investigated a leak of confidential information to a social networking site,” the company’s director of market development, Keith Crosley, said.

Crosley says 8 percent of companies have fired an employee for something they posted on social sites in the past 12 months, which is up from 4 percent last year.

Even the micro-blogging site Twitter can be problematic. Crosley says people can post links to sensitive information using URL shorteners.

“You could post something somewhere else, use a URL shortener to point to that, and you could actually leak masses of information that way,” he said.

E-mail is a bigger problem.

“It’s much easier to get fired over e-mail. In fact, it’s almost a third of companies [that] terminated an employee for violating an e-mail policy in the last 12 months,” Crosley said.

He says 31 percent of companies fired someone because of an e-mail, and 9 percent of companies have fired someone because of a blog.

The Proofpoint survey also found:

• E-mail still the No. 1 threat: 43 percent of U.S. companies surveyed had investigated an e-mail-based leak of confidential or proprietary information in the past 12 months. Nearly one-third of them, 31 percent, terminated an employee for violating e-mail policies in the same period (up from 26 percent in 2008).
• Blogs breaches continue: 18 percent of companies had investigated a data loss event via a blog or message board in the past 12 months. Seventeen percent disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies, while nearly 9 percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation (both increases from 2008: 11 percent and 6 percent, respectively).
• Video exposure: Given the rapid adoption of video and audio media within the enterprise–and the popularity of media sharing sites like YouTube–it’s no surprise that more U.S. companies reported investigating exposure events across these channels (18 percent, up from 12 percent in 2008). As a result, 15 percent have disciplined an employee for violating multimedia sharing/posting policies in the past 12 months while 8 percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation.
• Friends or foes?: Concerning social networks, U.S. companies are also experiencing more exposure incidents involving sites like Facebook and LinkedIn as compared to 2008 (17 percent versus 12 percent). U.S. companies are taking a much more forceful approach with offending employees–8 percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation as compared to only 4 percent in 2008.

E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com

Uninsured Utahns on the Rise

SALT LAKE CITY — U.S. Census numbers coming out this week estimate one out of every six Utahns under age 65 didn’t have health insurance in 2006. The numbers may be higher now, since unemployment has risen in the recession.

The Deseret News reports Utah’s uninsured rate was 16.7 percent in 2006. The national average was 17.8 percent. Utah ranked No. 31 nationwide.

Taking a look at the 2006 Health Insurance Coverage Status the state, for people under the age of 65, Utah’s poor and minorities had the highest number of uninsured, as did people living in Utah’s rural counties. For rural counties, Piute had the highest rate of uninsured at 26.9 percent. It was followed by Rich (25.5), Daggett (24.1), Beaver (23.6), Wayne (22.6), and Millard (21.6).

Davis County had the lowest percentage of uninsured in the state with 11.9 percent.

2006 is the most recent year for which census numbers on the subject are available. Judi Hilman, executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project, tells the Deseret News since 2006 things have only gotten worse.

Utah Oil Boom?

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A University of Utah study shows that in 2007 the oil and gas industry paid Utah and one of its state agencies more than $370 million.

Most of the money came from the lease of federal lands in Utah for drilling. That produced $310 million in shared royalties, fees and taxes for the state.

The Utah Institutional and Trust Lands Administration collected its own revenue by leasing state lands for energy development. That figure totaled $63 million.

Oil and gas drilling was booming in 2007 but has since tapered off with a decline in energy prices.

The calculations were made by researchers at the U.’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)