Press Release
Data Leaks & Malware Incidents Rise as Employees Embrace Web 2.0 & Collaborative Internet Applications in the Workplace
New Survey: Costs of Malware Grow to More Than $125,000 per Month for Largest
Companies
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:
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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.
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IT managers reported an average of 34 security and data leakage incidents per
month.
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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.
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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 FaceTime Communications
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant
messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by
IDC for four consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by
more than 900 customers – including nine of the 10 largest U.S. banks – for
security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime
supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise
IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM and Jabber.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE.
The FaceForward blog, at http://blog.facetime.com,
offers thoughts and opinions about the changing nature of Internet communications.
PR Contact:
Joshua Barnes
A&R Edelman
650-762-2865
joshua.barnes@ar-edelman.com
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