Technology has changed our life
style rapidly if we compare to our grandparents era. If we have a look on
technology changes, the most priceless gift is Internet. It has become the best
medium to gain knowledge, entertainment and communication tools to connect with
people all around the world. Therefore, we can said that Internet become a part
of in human life nowadays. In order to that, the most outstanding advantages in
use of Internet are online communication. Internet allows users to communicate
with others through Instant Messaging (IM) such as Yahoo Messenger, Facebook,
Twitter, Gtalk and many.
These types of IM especially Yahoo
Messenger (YM) is not only used for social and entertainment purposes but also
used in business field. According to the IDC report in 2008 by Nortel about
“Instant Messaging and Security” stated that the usage of IM such as YM can
help to improve the productivity of employee. According to the author, about
74% of businesses identify that YM improve employee’s teamwork but 72% business
band its use due to security problems. So, we can make point that even though
IM help to improve the employee’s relationships but the organizations more
concern about the security problems that occur in IM.
This report stated about the risks
of using IM by employees. The first risk that stated in the report is the
attack from viruses, worms and trogen. When the employees use the IM, they may
receive an unsolicited email inviting them to the on a link. This link may contain
worm and viruses that can damage the computer programs. The second risk is the
loss of intellectual property such as the employee’s confidential information
about organization can loss when the viruses and worms damage the computer
systems. The author also noted that provider of IM services such as YM,
Facebook chat, Window Live Messenger failed to offer full protection to their
users.
The third risk is theft of passwords
and user identities. He stated that IM accounts of users are also in risk
because their passwords and user ID’s stolen by hackers. He also mentioned that
many users of YM and Gmail have major attack by the hackers on their IM
accounts in February 2009. The fourth risk is the lack of corporate control in
IM accounts. The organizations are not able to monitor the business
transactions and communications between the employees through the public IM
services. Besides that, the author also suggested some ways to overcome the
security problems in IM account. The suggestions are the organizations need to
take control on employee’s activities in IM, minimize the risk by monitoring
the employee’s context and also try to educate the employees whom are the IM
users.
In conclusion, I personally feel that
the author has addressed the accurate risks that faced by the IM users and I
also agree with his suggestion on how to overcome this security problems. Therefore,
I want to say that every problem has a good solution and we need to find out
that and should try to solve it. We should not feel fear and do not quit easily
because usage of IM services can give more advantages rather than the
disadvantages. Last but not least, the providers of IM also should give more
important to the security problems in IM accounts and try to minimize the risks
by giving more protection to the user’s accounts.
