It should surprise no one that social networking has made its way into the enterprise — and IT managers, CIOs, and enterprise security pros are left wondering how to deal with users’ use of the services from within the workplace. While social media can offer highly effective tools for marketing and communication, there’s also dangers that can stem from employees’ social networking use, ranging from simply harming the company’s reputation to engaging in illicit sharing of enterprise data.
The threat is especially acute in industries like finance, where information loss can have a severe impact in terms of staying in compliance with industry regulations.
The risks have given rise to an array of specialist firms and new tools from established security vendors, all aiming to cash in on enterprises’ needs to monitor and, in some cases, lock down their workers’ use of social media. CIO Update takes a look at a new service from FaceTime that offers to help businesses get a better grasp on their employees’ social networking activities — assisting IT and compliance managers in tracking it, reigning it in where necessary, and blocking it outright where required.
As the popularity of social networks continues to boom, CIOs and IT managers, particularly in regulated industries, are faced with the daunting task of making sure enterprise users meet compliance requirements and don’t share proprietary or sensitive information.
FaceTime Communications offers an onsite appliance designed to help IT monitor the use of social networks and take appropriate action where necessary, from issuing a warning to preventing certain types of content from being transmitted at all. This week FaceTime is launching Socialite, a new SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) version of its monitoring and compliance suite that offers in-depth coverage of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as well as other social networks.
