Security for Web 2.0

Setting security rules in the new Web world.

Director, Visual & Digital Media, Computerworld |

Your employees might exist blogging right at present, equally yous read this. Or visiting a wiki site, checking out MySpace or sending instant letters. Best case? Your bright, tech-savvy employees are creating and collaborating. Worst example? Those same employees are unleashing company secrets or damaging your business's reputation. It's a conundrum that pits It security managers and their instinct to protect information against companies' desire to take full advantage of the newest technologies and attract the all-time technical minds.

Non surprisingly, response to Spider web 2.0 is as varied as companies themselves. Fiscal services firms, banks and other businesses in highly regulated industries tend to ban such online activities outright; others swing the other way, with few restrictions and low-cal oversight.

Just, alas, most companies fall somewhere in the glutinous heart — trying their all-time to restrict activities that expose them to undue risk while letting their employees experience the total creative benefits of the Spider web 2.0 world.

Many organizations are at present figuring out how to develop these custom-fit rules. Our sectional survey of IT executives shows that simply over half have already fabricated that get-go effort, implementing policies to regulate employees' utilize of social and networking sites and instant messaging. And of those companies that practise have policies in place, 76% prohibit those activities altogether.

Are full bans the right arroyo? For some, aye, and for others, no. In the following pages, you'll read stories well-nigh companies that have wrestled with that question and, in the process, figured out the policy that works all-time for them. And as these companies know, it'due south not only most applying a technology prepare; a big office of the answer is effectively communicating those policies to employees.

In the terminate, equally surely every bit yous have employees, you accept Web ii.0 security concerns. There's no ignoring the issues, and there's no boilerplate for addressing them, either. But we hope you'll depict a few policy ideas from the experiences of the organizations profiled in this outcome.

Because as Michael Miller, Global Crossing's vice president of security, says, "If you spend all your time blocking it, people volition observe means around it." .

Ellen Fanning is special reports editor at Computerworld. She can be contacted at ellen_fanning@computerworld.com.

Security for Web 2.0

How to keep corporate secrets safe in the new Web world.

Stories in this written report:

  • Editors Notation

    How companies are learning to keep their corporate secrets condom in the new Web world.

  • Keeping Secrets in a WikiBlogTubeSpace World.
    The debate rages over how to minimize security risks from blogging, social networking, video-sharing and other interactive activities that fall nether the Spider web 2.0 umbrella. Heres how some companies are tackling the problem. Plus, Sunday Microsystems, IBM, Yahoo and other companies share 15 guidelines for creating a blog policy.
  • IM Confidential
    Upfront recognition of IM as a powerful business tool requires upfront employee accountability for its use. Heres how to avoid the security bug. Plus, v questions to help you lot decide what blazon of instant messaging policy is best for your company.
  • Your Gadgets Are Springing Leaks
    Handheld electronics are cheap enough for the average worker to own, which means more than of these devices and a greater variety of them are getting hooked upward to networks. Heres how to plug the holes.
  • The Chat.
    Thou shalt not is a large plow-off for the Gen-Y oversupply. When spreading the message nigh pocket-sized-device security, try face-to-face up advice and abrupt marketing.
  • Vi Means to Stop Data Leaks.
    The theft of $400 million worth of proprietary information from a DuPont database offers lessons in how to mitigate risks and improve runway whats going on inside the firewall.
  • Shred Your Bits for Safetys Sake.
    Jeff Jonas, master scientist and distinguished engineer at IBMs entity analytic solutions group, discusses anonymization, a method of data protection, in this interview with the IDG News Service in Singapore
  • Get Serious
    Columnist Mark Hall is angry that CIOs are too timid to tackle the problem of secure messaging. Simply he outlines a plan that they should follow.
  • TECHCAST
    Web ii.0 poses technical, social and legal challenges for corporations. From user education to secure coding to insurance, at that place are many things to consider. Listen to Computerworlds Spider web two.0 Security Techcast for an overview of the responses companies should be taking.
  • Security Survey Results
    Computerworlds exclusive February security survey of 113 IT managers showed that although more than than half of respondents' companies have policies in place regarding employees' utilise of social networking sites, just over a quarter accept policies for small devices such equally iPods, USB drives or cell phones with cameras.
  • FAQ: Web 2.0 basics
    Still in the weeds as to what constitutes Web 2.0? Our FAQ guides you through 4 basic tenets: collaboration, assemblage, publishing and multimedia.

Ellen Fanning is Manager, Visual & Digital Media at IDG Communications, Inc.

Copyright © 2007 IDG Communications, Inc.