Web 2.0 and Social Networking

Web 2.0 is all about user-driven collaboration. First e-mail gave way to instant messaging. Instant messaging expanded into web conferencing and VoIP. Blogs, wikis and videologs (vlogs) appeared alongside traditional websites. And all of these new behaviors and supporting technologies have come together in social networks such as Facebook.

For in-depth research on over 700 Web 2.0 applications, visit greynetsguide.com.

Web 2.0 enables your users to:

• Build their own web content and host technically-advanced, Internet-enabled applications on their personal websites and social network pages
• Get real-time content updates such as RSS feeds, making information-sharing almost immediate
• Enjoy a more dynamic, collaborative browser experience

Today, the online landscape is alive with participation and collaboration. Hundreds of social networking sites are available to anyone with a browser. Several have evolved into full-blown development platforms - Facebook alone supports almost 20,000 applications, known as 'widgets'. And well over one hundred million people have personal pages or profiles on at least one social networking site. Many companies are finding ways to use these public utilities for internal use and collaboration… shutting them down completely is not viable.

A recent survey undertaken by FaceTime and New Diligence clearly illustrates the extent to which social networks are becoming embedded in the business environment. Over 93% of organizations have some level of social networking use on their network.

Social networking activities are so wide-ranging that companies are clearly struggling to find appropriate policies to govern this new environment. Almost half the respondents in the survey know the use of social network sites, understand the risks and do not have policies in place to manage their use.

As the line between corporate networks and social networks blurs, so the issue of social networks and their applications - many of which involve online communications - becomes an issue for enterprise IT.

Social networking risks

All this openness and collaboration between social and business networks also means many more opportunities exist for business assets and intellectual property to leave the safety of the corporate environment, and many more opportunities for unauthorized and unethical entities to gain access to the corporate environment.

Left unsecured and unmanaged, this widespread use of social networking can:

• Create holes for information leakage, resulting in the loss of confidential information,
• Expose organizations to legal liabilities and financial penalties from compliance breaches
• Compromise network security from malware spread through real-time channels
• Increase help desk calls and support costs
• Cause network bandwidth overload with file sharing

And then there are the additional productivity issues resulting from non-business-related use of social networks during the workday.

Social Security Challenge

The Unified Security Gateway (USG) ) provides a single solution that enables organizations to get visibility into and control over the use of social networking and other Web 2.0 activities, as well as over standalone real-time communications applications like IM and P2P and unified communications environments like Microsoft Office Communications Server and IBM Lotus Sametime.

USG enables companies to safely let their employees use FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and other personal and professional social networking sites. With USG, enterprises can

• Manage access to and use of applications within social networking sites like Facebook according to established acceptable use policies
  • Lower the risks from inbound threats and outbound data leakage
  • Meet employee needs without impacting productivity or security
  • Maintain regulatory compliance through logging and archival.
• Keep protection on track with dynamic updates of new social networking sites and applications hosted by those sites
• Benefit from a single point for enablement, access management, security and control for web and real-time channels
• Protect investment in security today by providing a platform on which future web-borne threat prevention can be built

With flexible deployment options, USG fits seamlessly into existing network topologies to offer the highest level of security with zero latency and a low total cost of ownership.

Learn more about Unified Security Gateway