BELMONT, Calif. - October 27, 2008 - For large
enterprises, the costs associated with malware now amount to an
average of more than $125,000 per month. The costs of repairing
malware attacks and corporate data leaks have risen along with
employee usage of Web 2.0, and social media at work. These are some
of the key findings in the 4th annual independent study
commissioned by FaceTime Communications, the leading provider of
solutions that control employee use of Internet applications and
manage unified communications in the enterprise. The report also
confirmed that the use of these applications is widespread with
more than 60 percent of all companies surveyed having eight or more
of these application in use on their networks.
The research was conducted to determine the impact that
collaborative Internet applications have on companies and
organizations. Conducted by NewDiligence in September 2008, the
survey of more than 500 employees and IT managers tracks the growth
of Web 2.0 and employee-initiated applications that contribute to
the consumerization of IT. These applications, which introduce
compliance, security and data leakage risks, are in use at 97
percent of all organizations, up from 85 percent in 2007. On
average, companies report 9.3 such applications in use by employees
on the enterprise network. This year's study delved into the use of
social media in the enterprise as well as IT's preparedness for
electronic discovery requirements.
"For all four years that FaceTime has commissioned this survey,
end users have claimed they have the right to download and use
whatever applications they choose to help them do their jobs. This
year's study also reveals their social media habits have extended
into the workplace and may be contributing to security and data
leakage incidents," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing
and product management at FaceTime.
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. FaceTime enables companies to secure and control how
employees use Internet applications- IM, P2P, Facebook and other
Web 2.0 applications - rather than requiring IT to block all use of
these potentially advantageous resources.
"We work with large and mid-size enterprises every day, seeing
first hand that Internet applications are brought into the
workplace by employees for both work and personal reasons," said
Cabri. "IT managers are often at odds with employees' belief that
they have the right to use whatever applications they feel they
need to do their jobs, including these Internet applications that
are evasive and easily circumvent existing security infrastructure.
They create potential compliance, information leakage concerns as
well as introducing myriad vectors for incoming malware."
While email and Web browsing are typically monitored and
controlled by IT (79 percent and 65 percent respectively), the
extent of the risk associated with Internet applications may be
less understood. Fewer than 40 percent of IT respondents report
monitoring and managing applications such as P2P and only 25
percent say they are securing and monitoring Web 2.0
applications.
The survey also revealed that fewer than half of IT managers
could actively monitor and reproduce specific applications such as
instant messaging (IM) communications if asked by corporate
attorneys in the event of a lawsuit. In fact, 38 percent of IT
managers said they have no such capabilities and only 13 percent
said they could do it - but not in any practical time frame. In
2006, the definition of what is considered electronically stored
information (ESI), as defined by the Federal Rules for Civil
Procedure, expanded to include IM, and other types of electronic
communication. In the event of litigation, all ESI - not just email
- must be produced as part of the e-Discovery process. Yet, only 31
percent archive IM communications.
More key findings:
- 79% of employees use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube)
at work for business reasons and 51% access social media sites at
least once per day.
- IT managers reported an average of 34 security and data leakage
incidents per month.
- 73% of IT managers report at least one security incident as a
result of Internet application usage; viruses, Trojans and worms
(59%) are most common, followed by spyware (57%) for a close
second.
- 37% of companies report an instance of non compliance with
corporate or regulatory policy, while 27% report incidents of
accidental or unintentional data leakage.
- Despite the new Federal Rules for Civil Procedure, only 31
percent of enterprises store IM communications. One in four has
copies of audio conferences (25%), while slightly fewer (20%)
archive corporate Web conferences.
Unified Communications
Unified communications suites, such as Microsoft Office
Communications Server and IBM Lotus Sametime, are becoming integral
to the way employees work today. However, IT managers are finding
that their UC rollouts don't significantly reduce employee use of
consumer-oriented Web 2.0 applications and public instant messaging
networks. Security and compliance controls must extend across all
UC modalities in this heterogeneous environment, both
enterprise-sanctioned and consumer-oriented.
Unified communications suites, which give enterprises a way to
enable employees with multiple communications modalities over an IP
infrastructure, exist today at about 29 percent of IT respondent
organizations and an additional ten percent have deployed pilots to
a limited number of users. Security, compliance and management
issues are top of mind among IT managers in organizations with UC
deployed.
The full report, "The Collaborative Internet: Usage Trends,
Employee Attitudes and IT Impact," is available from FaceTime
Communications at www.FaceTime.com/survey08/summary.
FaceTime's Solutions for the New Internet
Because these collaborative Internet applications pose myriad
network and information security risks, the heterogeneous network
environment that they create must be understood, secured and
managed by IT.
FaceTime's Unified Security Gateway (USG) is a secure Web
gateway appliance that enables enterprises to control these
real-time communications. USG integrates management, security and
compliance of Web and Web 2.0 communications, consumer-driven
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.
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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