1. Introduction
Instant Messaging can be a benefit to business when used properly, but IM is often abused by employees and poses significant liability and security risks.
The free consumer IM client programs in widest use, such as AIM, Yahoo and MSN Messenger, pose many security concerns.
Consumer IM programs often support more than just simple text-based chat. They may also include peer to peer file transfer capabilities, which can pose security risks in two ways.
Internal users can send documents that may be confidential out of your network, circumventing your network's perimeter defenses against file sharing programs or e-mail attachments.
On the other hand, external users can send files that might contain viruses or malicious code to users on the internal network.
In addition, a liability risk arises if employees use the file transfer feature to share copyrighted music, movie or software files in violation of the law.
There are two basic types of IM technologies: peer to peer (P2P) and client-server. With a peer to peer system,
IM clients communicate with each other directly. With a client-server system, communications go through a central IM server from which it is passed on to the recipient.
IM applications use different, proprietary protocols and standard firewall configurations may not block or detect them.
Some IM clients can use ports other than those associated with IM (see the table for a list of commonly used IM ports), even commonly open ports such as 80.
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2. How to manage instant messenger usage?
Because IM does have benefits for businesses, you might wish to allow it in your organization, but that doesn't mean you have to allow it for everyone,
or allow employees to use it with no oversight. There are a number of products that allow administrators to manage IM usage.
3. Using WFilter to monitor instant messengers.
Related Features:
- Monitor instant messenger usage.
- Record chat contents.
- Record files transfered by instant messenger softwares.
- Implement a policy to block certain softwares or user accounts.
- Block instant messenger file transfers.
- Support various softwares.Including AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! and others.
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