Security is the main obstacle to enterprise adoption of social media in a business context, according to research conducted by a security software vendor.

The investigation by McAfee found that almost half (49%) of surveyed businesses claimed that they were concerned about the security issues involved with using tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Of those businesses that cited security fears, the most prominent perceived threats were malicious software (35%), viruses (15%), ‘information overexposure’ (11%) and spyware (10%).

Despite these concerns, the McAfee report found that 75% of surveyed businesses were using social networking in some capacity, notably for sales, marketing and human resources purposes.