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Hot Topic
Instant Messaging
The following information is excerpted from Secure Computing's free educational whitepaper, Benefits of Enterprise Instant Messaging. Click here to download the entire whitepaper in PDF format.
The Appeal of IM
Instant messaging allows users to communicate in a manner similar to face-to-face interaction, in that it allows a real-time conversation to take place without the inherent delay of e-mail. Conversations over IM also allow each participant to fully express his or her thoughts in a manner that may not have been possible during a spoken conversation.
Adoption of IM into the Enterprise
One of the interesting aspects of IM adoption is that it seems to be primarily a grassroots initiative driven by end users outside the purview of corporate IT departments. Some data points that highlight this are:
- Giga Information Group reports that 60% of mid-to-large enterprises have some level of IM being used for business purposes (installation percentage rises to roughly 85% if personal use is factored in) and yet 90% of these organizations (using IM) have no formal IT support and less than 10% of these organizations have implemented secure, enterprise instant messaging.
- The Osterman Research survey on IM identifies that only 29% of companies believe they are currently using IM for business, although numbers from IDC indicate that 70% of companies have workers using IM for business-related activities and 35% of users of public instant-messaging services are business customers.
These statistics indicate that IM has already penetrated the enterprise, regardless of whether it is sanctioned or not, and more importantly, many organizations are unaware of this adoption. Read more >>
IM Risks and Challenges
Instant messaging presents enterprises with a completely new set of threats to network security, bandwidth availability and program compatibility. Whether due to the always-on nature of IM, lack of monitoring tools, known vulnerabilities or multiple protocols used by different vendors, businesses looking to incorporate IM into their communication strategies must address these issues logically and with an eye on maximizing security without sacrificing any of the technology's benefits. Read more >>
Necessary Infrastructure
While in many ways similar to the infrastructure that exists within enterprises today to support e-mail, IM brings unique requirements around real time monitoring, multiple protocols, and volume. In order to discover, monitor, manage and enforce appropriate IM use, it is necessary to put in place an infrastructure with the following capabilities:
Enterprise Policies for Inbound and Outbound Protection
In order to encourage safe, responsible instant messaging within an enterprise, explicit policies regarding IM access, privacy and logging/archiving must be set. Read more >>
Enforcement
Enforcing corporate policy regarding IM means it is critical to support all IM products and imperative to building the infrastructure necessary for productive, secure IM within an organization. Read more >>
Encryption
Despite the challenges presented by IM's real-time availability, securing your enterprise IM network is every bit as important as securing your e-mail system. To that end, conversations between employees and business partners that take place over public IM systems should be secured using encryption, a practice already in place for enterprise e-mail. Read more >>
Reporting and Intelligence
Because management can not be expected to monitor IM activity, reports should be generated for interested executives and other decision-makers. Read more >>
Integration with E-Mail
There is no reason that e-mail and IM should be "either/or" technologies; the two can and should go hand-in-hand. Existing employee and customer information should be integrated as closely and as seamlessly as possible with existing enterprise directories, including matching IM identities to enterprise users. Read more >>
Simple Management and Scalability
Once you have selected an IM system for your organization, it is imperative that the roll-out of the technology have little or no impact on desktop systems within the network. The IM system should be as close to "plug-and-play" as possible and should automatically detect and track IM activity immediately upon installation. Read more >>
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