Cisco Spark

[Chris Green <CGreen () UTTYLER EDU>]

Fellow Colleagues,

We have recently had a request from faculty members on campus to use Cisco Spark as a way to collaborate instead of 
using email. We are not familiar with Spark and are playing catchup in trying to identify all of the risks it could 
pose. After doing some basic research, here are a few of the more obvious red flags we have identified:


*         No way to manage DLP

*         No way to manage accounts of employees when they leave the university

*         Public information requests will be near impossible to comply with

*         Users having the ability to share and give control of their desktops with anyone externally is a HUGE 
security concern, and also puts us out of compliance as users will be able to connect to the network remotely without 
authenticating via two-factor.

I was curious if there are any institutions out there that have already run into this dilemma, and if so, what have you 
learned, and what direction have you decided to go as far as allowing faculty to use Spark?

Thanks for your input!

-C.

Chris Green
Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Tyler
cgreen () uttyler edu<mailto:swilsan () cii utexas edu>