IT professionals are worse than ordinary employees when it comes to putting a company's security at risk by using social networking sites, it has been reported.

A joint survey by computer software giant Microsoft and security firm Facetime, found that they are twice as likely to access sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, than other workers.

The figures show that IT professionals were also more likely to give personal details away over one of these sites, with 35 per cent having posted their date of birth and more than a quarter revealing their home address.

Stephen Lamb, technical security specialist at Microsoft, said: "We assume IT pros are more technical and aware of things like phishing, but our research suggests the contrary."

Chris Boyd, security research manager at Facetime, added: "We [IT pros] think we know it all and we don't put enough thought into security."

The research shows that the popularity of online social networking continues to rise, with 33 per cent of UK workers using such a site during the working day.