Instant Messaging (IM) usage has become commonplace
within the enterprise and continues to rise. Each
month employees install free IM software from
AOL, Microsoft or Yahoo! to "chat" with
peers, business colleagues and friends using the
company network. Rogue use of these applications
raises many valid security and productivity concerns
among IT managers. Blue Coat Systems enables organizations
to secure and control the IM applications already
in use - providing the granular access control,
logging and reporting required to turn public
IM products into enterprise-class messaging solutions.
Many industries including finance and healthcare
have regulatory compliance issues impacted by
the proliferation of uncontrolled IM. For example,
the SEC mandates all communications with external
investment banking clients be logged and analyzed
for potential securities trading violations. Without
the ability to properly control and log IM sessions,
financial organizations find themselves unable
to meet regulatory compliance.
Additionally, IM protocols were designed to allow
communication between consumers across the public
Internet under any possible configuration, and
therefore, are very difficult to control with
existing network security products. Administrators
attempting to block IM traffic by closing firewall
ports have learned that these applications are
"port agile", often rolling over to
other ports which must remain open for users to
access the Internet. And, public IM products generally
contain no provisions for message logging, confidentiality,
or security.
BlueCoat's IM control solution is fully integrated
within the ProxySG family of secure proxy server appliances.
It provides comprehensive control, logging and
reporting over all IM traffic while delivering
a single point of management for controlling internet
access, personal web email, Secure HTTP, FTP,
and multimedia streaming on the organization'
s network.
In terms of productivity, IM is a double-edged
sword. Some companies have found IM to be an indispensable
communication tool. Customer service organizations
can converse with clients in real time to help
resolve issues quickly. IM also provides the ability
to reach employees at their desks quickly and
easily when an employee is on a phone call, for
example. However, other organizations have identified
it as just another distraction for employees by
creating a "virtual water cooler" that
cannot be controlled or monitored.
BlueCoat's granular
proxy policy architecture controls
not only which users are allowed to utilize Instant
Messaging, but which IM protocols are allowed,
what features are to be enabled, to whom they
may IM or chat with (inside the company and/or
outside the company), what time of the day they
can IM, how logging should be handled, and much
more. Enterprises can leverage their existing
authentication infrastructure and all of the power
and flexibility of Blue Coat's secure proxy
server appliance
to handcuff Rogue IM usage - while allowing IM
for appropriate business communications.
Click here to download the IM Control datasheet.
|
