Security is as much a social issue as a practical or technical one. Some security problems are a direct result of business hostilities. Information that is valuable to a business may also be valuable to competitors or disgruntled employees. The removal or sabotage of that information may also be valuable to a competitor. Other problems are caused by the electronic equivalent of joyriding, a random sort of malice, which is nonetheless annoying and perhaps fatal for a business.

More serious security issues include spam and other kinds of unsolicited mail. While only an annoyance to individuals, spam can become a serious drain on resources once it starts infiltrating a business. The unwanted mail has to be forwarded along the company network, where it can take up disk space and use computer power that could be put to more constructive uses.

Another concern is the use of company resources for illegal activities. Chief among these is reading or distributing Internet porn and advertising pyramid schemes. Companies with permanent Internet connections are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of activities. Without adequate security, computer-literate users may find it easy to create non-existent user accounts, which can be used to abet illegal activities with relative impunity.

Then there is threat of hacking attacks from outside. Hackers may decide to joyride into a commercial system just to prove they can. Less often, they will target a company or organization if the organization has annoyed them in the some way. In either case, solid security is essential. More worrying, hackers can use a company's computers as a warehouse for illegal information and make it look as if the company, not the hacker, is responsible for the appearance of the information. Computer-savvy employees may sometimes be able to intercept private email and disgruntled ex-employees may hold a company hostage, threatening to destroy all their records if their demands are not met.