Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. These are a few of the many sites that employees are logging into every day, often causing anxiety among IT departments and management.
Market Connections, a market research firm focused on B2G, recently did a study that noted government workers primarily use Facebook, followed by YouTube and LinkedIn. About half of the respondents in the study said they have access to social networking sites at work but 12 percent were unsure if access was allowed.
Why the uncertainty? Most of the organizations we talk to are still determining their social media usage policies. The initial reaction to these sites is to shut them down and block all access from the network due to security, network bandwidth and productivity concerns. In fact, with Facebook being the most commonly used social network, it also has the most potential for productivity drain as Farmville and Mafia Wars are the most used applications on the popular site and the biggest driver for malicious code and malware.
But as we know, blocking access to these sites can impact morale—especially among the military where connections with friends and family is critical. Often, when a customer calls us in to discuss best practices, we remind them that security is not about saying no; it is about providing access safely.
Here are some best practices to consider that enable secure, effective social media access without affecting network performance:
- Identify a WAN optimization solution that gives your IT department control over the percentage of bandwidth allocated to social applications. For example, 90% of bandwidth could be allocated for mission critical applications and 10% for social use to limit the constraints on the network
- Enable next generation firewall and web content filtering solutions to prevent malicious code from running on a browser. Not only does this control nefarious activities but also allows network administrators to use granular controls and parameters around Internet usage. For example, administrators can ban the use of gambling, game applications, job searching, etc.
- Educate the users. Many users view these social sites as safe and don’t realize that malicious code could be running in the background
There is no denying that social media networks and applications will continue to infiltrate agency environments. It is an easy way to communicate and share information. Agencies can embrace this movement by following best practices and ensuring that policies and best practices are in place.
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