Best Practices for Employees who Blog

When an employee posts online, responds to comments or writes blogs, the fine line between business and personal information has to be kept in mind. Online posting should ensure that the post does not tarnish the name of the company, its policies, result in loss of intellectual property, reputation, competitive business information or make it liable for legal action. Employees have a written or unwritten responsibility to follow corporate protocol on what can or cannot be written online either in personal or business capacity. A  few of the best practices which employees who blog could follow are:

1. Add disclaimers on personal blogs to state that this represent your personal opinion and not that of your company
2. Do not blog about events in your company or use the company’s logo or name
3. Do not blog about a competitor or use their logos or name
4. Respect copyright laws
5. Ensure your blogs do not divulge information of value to your company. This may include intellectual property, research or methods
6. Do not blog on topics that contravenes the reputation or is against the ethical policy of the company you work for
7. Do not make defamatory statements on the business, employees, customers, competitors or take work issues online
8. Carefully review what information is being published on your blog and remember that your reputation affects the company
9. Do not protest against your companies policies online.

Passwords that should never be used

Online passwords are your best friend. Listed are sample passwords you should never use; which includes the name of your best friend too. If your current password is among this list, please change it immediately

·         Password, 123456, 12345678, 1234567, abc123, 'iloveyou', qwerty, abcd1234, security, admin123, Welcome1, letmein, trustno1, 111111,  master, sunshine,  passw0rd, shadow, 123123, 654321, superman, qazwsx,  football, monkey

·         Family or friend name particularly if is among the top 50 most popular names in your country which may or may not be appended by 12,123, 1234, 89

·         Your favorite or one of the most popular football or sports team which may or may not be appended by 12, 123,1234, 89

·         Names of fruits, sports and colors which may or may not be appended by 12,123, 1234, 89

·         Password based on the site name e.g. Facebook123 which may or may not be appended by 12, 123,1234, 89

Related Read

The Secret

Six ways to be a model cyber citizen

Be cyber security aware, use security best practices and report cyber crime

Use an antivirus product as it helps not only to protect you but prevents your computer from hosting malware that affect others

Be a good cyber parent, educate your child on the dangers, ethics and safety measures to be used online

Stay away from using pirated products

Encourage your government to invest in raising the national standard of cyber security in curriculum, law and customer protection

Be responsible for your online habits, tweets, as what you do online affects your reputation, family, colleagues, religion, nation and company

What, Why and How of Employee Monitoring

It is common knowledge that companies monitor what employees do in the workplace and on office equipment. I put together a comprehensive  view of  what  was monitored, why it was monitored and how it was monitored. It should be borne in mind that most companies only monitor a small subset of the list below.