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| Secure Instant Messaging Solutions |
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IM is the fastest growing corporate communication tool ever. This is because it can speed up
business processes and reduce costs especially inter-office call costs.
But it is largely being ignored by network security administrators - this means restricted and
confidential corporate documents can leave your site with no audit trail and be an open door for
viruses to come in.
Instant messaging is gaining popularity with workers as it enables them to have lower levels of
telephone tag as they can see when a user is online (known as presence) but also as it allows them
to get around a company's email traffic policy. Management like it as a tool as well as it has
full message-logging capabilities unlike phone calls, and this ensures compliance with relevant
regulatory requirements (e.g. SEC, NYSE, NASD in the US)
This opens up enormous security issues for a firm, let alone the productivity decreases experienced
by workers with carte-blanche to use it at any time.
The main security issues are:
- Allowing confidential documents and files out of corporate control with audit trail, and no
alarms being rung
- Virus infected files can be sent around - with users helping it to breach company firewalls
with an IM file transfer
- Users can allow real-time business critical information to be sent quicker than a phone call
could be made, again with no audit trail and no alarms ringing
However it is not necessary to switch off all instant messaging protocols on your network,
whether your company uses and enterprise package or public IM networks there are now technologies
available to enhance the usage of IM by making it secure and available only to trusted users and
networks.
Gartner Group predicts that by 2004, 60% of real-time communication between users by any means,
including voice, text or call-and-response will be driven by IM. This means that if you want the
benefits of IM VoIP without the risks as well as allowing all your staff to interact using desktops,
laptops, PDAs, mobiles, pagers, etc have the entry points to your networked secured to allow only
legitimate traffic in.
Technical Section
So the firewall enthusiasts out there say: "Aah, but I have blocked port all IM traffic on Layer 7."
Unfortunately most IM traffic these days is given an HTML header, so to your firewall and content
filtering packages it looks like regular port 80 traffic. VPNet's offering sits on a server next to
the gateway and is always in sniffer mode to search out all 'hidden' IM traffic.
VPNet's preferred solution providers are the first to buy the original binary code, and are now
development partners, of all the main IM software providers so they know in advance all the latest
port scanning techniques that are being used.
Why wait any Longer?
VPNet's preferred IM management suite of solutions allows IT professionals to take a phased approach
to the controlled adoption and management of IM, managing new and emerging usage challenges —
including virus attacks and inadvertent dissemination of proprietary company information—in a
highly-scalable, customisable and cost-effective fashion.
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