The risks of unmanaged IM in the workplace

The growth and popularity of IM and presence are primarily about immediacy, especially in a world increasingly interested in instant communication - when email with its delayed response of minutes or hours is not adequate.

It is estimated that over 80% of enterprises currently have users employing IM through user-installed, unmanaged applications. As a result, most companies have no clue as to who is using what, or what kind of message traffic is taking place. According to a report from the Burton Group, only 10% of organisations have formal IM policies - and only half of that percentage has actively secured the IM application against information leakage or vulnerability to malicious attack.

An unmanaged IM system is a disaster waiting to happen. Data leakage, malware and other risks are a common occurrence on IM systems. The ability to manage users (e.g. directory information, policies, limiting types of data shared, logging of contacts) is a critical requirement in nearly all companies, but especially those that have to meet specific industry regulations (e.g. financial services, medical, life sciences, retail).

There are a few key issues to consider if your employees are currently using freely available public IM systems in the business:

Control - With public IM, you cannot control who can use the system, when, how and with whom they communicate.

Compliance - Most pubic IM systems do not enable logging and archiving of all message traffic for audit & regulatory compliance purposes.

Security - Public IM services do not enable secure, encrypted transmission of all message traffic to prevent interception.

Most enterprises should not freely allow use of publicly available, unsecured and uncontrolled IM and presence systems. Most enterprise class systems will provide standards-based approaches to communicating, unlike public IM. If you think that some employees are using a public IM system then it would be wise to carry out a full evaluation of IM usage throughout your organisation.

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