Communication Solutions

Technology is often a double-edged sword. While it provides numerous advantages and facilities to the companies and individuals alike, it also brings unprecedented dangers and ill effects that may turn catastrophic. One such technology is instant messaging, which has recently become popular with companies as it provides an opportunity for real time communication. However, the technology is also under the scanner for various security hazards it poses to organizations.

 

Trying to tackle this issue, FaceTime (News - Alert) Communications announced that its newly enhanced version of IMAuditor provides a dynamic system for information leak prevention that detects and scans message communications as well as file transfer content in real-time.

 

The established policies of a company regarding the data transfer are applied to all the popular file types transferred over unified communications platforms such as Microsoft OCS and IBM (News - Alert) Lotus Sametime by the IMAuditor system. It also applies these policies to public instant messaging networks such as AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, GoogleTalk and MSN. The system has the ability to prevent transmission of the information as it analyzes and detects sensitive or confidential information in both messages and file attachments. It will also warn the user about established company policy regarding the sharing of corporate intellectual property.

 

Recently, Osterman Research conducted an information leak prevention survey for FaceTime, where the research agency stated that nearly 40 percent of IT staff at mid- to large-sized organizations in North America said they believed that unintentional leaks by employees are a bigger threat to their data security than spyware or malicious software. Also, 57 percent believe their corporate data is not adequately protected from leaks via IM and/or unified communications.

 

“Organizations are deploying unified communications to help their employees be more efficient and to reduce costs,” said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and product management for FaceTime Communications (News - Alert). “The last thing IT wants to do is to create yet another open security hole for intellectual property to be leaked. File attachments can contain sensitive information and unless their content can be detected and evaluated, control is lost at the gateway.”