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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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SEPTEMBER 16, 2003
Why Offices Are Now Open Secrets Wildly popular technologies like instant messaging and Wi-Fi make workers more productive -- and give hackers juicy opportunities Steve S. can't imagine his life without instant messenger. An employee of a second-tier brokerage in New York City, he uses IM to talk simultaneously with clients, colleagues, and friends -- and to help prioritize who needs his attention first. Sometimes it's a colleague with a question about the gold market, other times it's a client who needs fast advice on a stock trade. And when a friend messages him a hello, he can respond at a more convenient time, without interrupting a business transaction to answer the phone. "No matter how good you are on the phone, the best you can do is carry on two conversations at once," he says. "With IM, I can have six going at once.... That allows me to get my job done and serve clients better." That increased productivity, however, comes with increased security risks. Corporations need to ensure that employees don't send proprietary information or, perhaps, receive an infected document over unmonitored channels. And regulated industries, such as financial services and health insurers, are required by the Securities & Exchange Commission to track, monitor, and store communications in case of a breach of standards. NOT "UNDER THE RADAR." IMs have caused problems before. In 2001, San Francisco hedge-fund manager Quint Slattery sent one to a handful of associates about software company PeopleSoft (PSFT ), suggesting that regulators were looking into accounting irregularities at a publicly traded subsidiary and that it might be sued by a customer for breaking a contract. News of the message leaked out, and PeopleSoft's stock tumbled 27%, from $42 to $30. Slattery later retracted his statement. "Stories like these show the vulnerability of a communications system that most people think is under the radar screen," says Glen Vondrick, CEO of Face Time, a Foster City (Calif.) IM security company. New technologies such as IM and Wi-Fi -- "wireless fidelity" networks that let mobile workers connect to the Internet at ultrafast speeds without cables -- have flourished inside corporations as employees embrace easier ways to communicate. In 2002, some 84% of corporations had IM software operating within their networks, according to market researcher Osterman Research in Black Diamond, Wash. That will grow to 91% this year, Osterman predicts, and to nearly 100% by 2007. IT'S FORBIDDEN. The dark side of that productivity-enhancing phenomenon -- at least, from a corporate viewpoint -- is that when employees download their own IM software, technology managers lose control. That makes it difficult, if not if not impossible, to monitor correspondence or protect valuable corporate data. The response of many corporations has been simply to forbid technologies they can't control. Thomas Weisel Partners, a San Francisco investment firm, banned IM for more than a year. Its technology administrators relented only after the terrorist attacks of September 11, when IM turned out to be one of the most reliable ways to communicate. Another reason to relent, security experts note, is that banning good technology can make companies less secure, not more, since employees find ways to sneak it in anyway.
BW MALL
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