Security Fears Prod Many Firms To Limit Staff Use of Web Services

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () bsf-llc com>]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114369288512912073.html?mod=technology_featu
red_stories_hs
Security Fears Prod Many Firms To Limit Staff Use of Web Services

By SHAWN YOUNG
March 30, 2006; Page A1

Companies are clamping down on employees' workplace use of the expanding
range of free Internet services, such as instant messaging and video
downloading, to protect themselves from viruses, communications traffic jams
and regulatory missteps.

General Electric Co. has barred outside instant-messaging and file-sharing
programs, as well as access to personal online email accounts like those
offered by Yahoo Inc. Telecom company Global Crossing Ltd. also blocks
outside instant messaging and online email accounts. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
is one of many banks that blocks Internet services it can't track or
monitor, including outside instant-messaging, phone and email programs.

Another big bank, ABN Amro Holdings NV of the Netherlands, also bans many
consumer-communications technologies, including Skype, the Internet phone
service owned by eBay Inc. (See related article.) "I'm not allowing Skype
because I don't know what it does," says Bill Rocholl, global head of
strategy and engineering for ABN Amro's telecommunications and network
services. 

...

Some companies worry the new services will overwhelm their networks with
unwanted traffic. Others are primarily concerned about security or their
ability to track workplace communications, especially in industries like
financial services, where regular monitoring is required by regulators.
Instant messages from the outside, for example, often aren't logged and
archived the way email is, creating a potential backdoor for illicit
communications or breaches of client privacy.

...

 

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