BELMONT, CALIF. - April 7, 2008 - In response
to rapidly growing concern over the use of social network sites and
Web 2.0 applications in the enterprise, FaceTime today announced
significant new capabilities for its Unified Security Gateway (USG)
designed to provide IT managers with management, security and
control over 140 social
networking sites, 20,000 individual Facebook
widgets and more than 400 Web and real-time applications. These
applications include IPTV, P2P file sharing multimedia,
applications and instant
messaging clients. The new capabilities complement the USGs URL
filtering, anti-malware and IM and P2P management capabilities
and will be available in 30 days.
Today's internet is dominated by instant messaging, P2P, VoIP,
social networking, blogs, and myriad Web
2.0 applications. Five of the top 10 most visited sites on the
Web are social networking sites, as reported by Alexa Traffic
Rankings. Some of these social networking sites, such as Facebook,
have opened up their platforms for third party developers to add
applications. Industry efforts such as the OpenSocial initiative
will result in more third party development for its members,
including MySpace.
The availability of customized social networking pages and
increasing use of real time applications such as instant messaging,
combined with more complex malware, has made URL filtering alone
insufficient for securing the Web gateway.
In the March 10, 2008 Gartner, Inc. Report "Social-Networking
Sites Present Real Business Risks and Benefits," Peter Firstbrook
says "There are corporate advantages to allowing social-networking
sites, the most compelling of which are attracting employees and
providing a progressive work environment." Firstbrook recommends
that "organizations should only block social-networking sites after
conducting a careful analysis of the risks and benefits."
According to research conducted by FaceTime over the past two
weeks, 60 percent of IT managers are more concerned about the use
of social networking in the enterprise than are concerned with
email use. Nearly one-third of those surveyed are in organizations
that have policies against employee access of social networking
sites at work, and 20 percent said they are concerned about social
networking but their organizations have not yet established a
policy.
Although IT managers are appropriately concerned about the
security of their networks, it's clear that Web 2.0 applications
and social networking sites are in use in the enterprise, and here
to stay.
"As the line between work and personal life blurs, Web gateway
security becomes more complicated. Employees are no longer just
shopping online - they are accessing Facebook, MySpace and other
Web 2.0 applications from their work PCs to collaborate and
interact with friends and co-workers," said Kailash Ambwani,
president and CEO of FaceTime Communications. "This phenomenon is
generating concern among our customers over everything from
productivity to bandwidth loss, from malware to information
leakage."
FaceTime has published detailed information on social networking
and Web 2.0 applications on its www.GreynetsGuide.com public resource database.
In addition to the Facebook applications, the site references more
than 800 greynets in categories including gaming software, IPTV,
Instant Messaging, P2P, multimedia, VoIP, social networking, Web
Conferencing, Web-based email and remote administration tools. This
information is used to help IT managers determine which
applications to block, which to enable and which to monitor using
FaceTime's USG secure Web gateway appliance.
FaceTime's GreynetsGuide database is a valuable resource for
determining the characteristics of various social networking and
Web 2.0 applications and third party widgets, and its integration
with the Unified Security Gateway provides a complete secure Web
gateway offering - allowing customers to easily obtain detailed
information about an application detected in their network by
USG.
About the Unified Security Gateway for Today's Real-time
Internet
The FaceTime Unified Security Gateway (USG) is a secure Web
gateway appliance that enables enterprises to control the new
Internet, including Web and real-time communications. USG
integrates management, security and compliance of Web
communications, social networking, consumer-driven greynet
applications such as public IM, Skype and P2P and enterprise-class
Unified Communications suites such as Microsoft's Office
Communications Server and IBM Lotus Sametime. From a single
platform, organizations can enable and enforce safe and productive
use of these applications and protect the network against inbound
malware, mitigate information leakage risks and insure that
corporate, regulatory and e-discovery needs are met.
The USG integrates gateway malware protection and Web filtering
with FaceTime's best-in-class IM hygiene and archiving, in a
purpose-built, hardened appliance. With this single point of
control, organizations can gain complete visibility of all Internet
communications and reduce total cost of ownership using a simpler
solution that is easily administered by the IT staff. Key
capabilities of USG include:
- Centralized policy management and control - single
point of control for setting and enforcing policy for all elements
of Web browsing, Unified communications IM, and hundreds of
real-time applications in use in the enterprise
- Web Filtering - powerful policies to monitor and
control Web access to more than 70 categories and millions of URLs
with integrated "user coaching" features
- Social networking management and control - detailed
reporting and granular control over more than 20,000 Facebook
widgets at corporate, group and user levels.
- Content hygiene and security - Web-based malware
prevention, virus scanning of file attachments, worm blocking, spIM
protection and keyword content filtering for both UC-generated as
well as federated public IM
- Regulatory compliance archiving and workflow -
guaranteed logging of all UC and public IM communications including
capture and archival of file attachments, tamper-resistant storage
of messages, and robust and easy-to-use review and audit
capabilities
- Easy administration and management - browser-based
management interface for policy configuration, compliance workflow
and message retrieval for e-discovery
- Flexible reporting - improved decision-making about
security issues and Internet usage through integrated real-time
reporting and monitoring, and compatibility with leading
third-party reporting applications
Pricing and Availability
Granular control of social networking is part of the version 2
upgrade to FaceTime's Unified Security Gateway appliance, available
in 30 days from FaceTime and its authorized resellers worldwide.
Pricing for the USG starts at $4,995.
About Actiance, Inc. (Formerly FaceTime Communications, Inc.)
FaceTime Communications became Actiance, Inc on January 11, 2011 following an agreement to
transfer the FaceTime trademark to Apple.
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of Unified Communications and Web 2.0,
including instant messaging, blogs and social networking. Ranked number one by IDC for five consecutive
years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by more than 1,500 customers for the security,
management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime supports or has strategic partnerships
with all leading IM, unified communications providers and social networks including AOL, Google, Yahoo!,
Skype, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-3223.
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