How To Tame the Social Network At Work

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan provides an in-depth report on how IT can tame social networking at work without shutting the organization off to the kinds of business opportunities today's social networks present. 'They're a productivity sink and a bandwidth suck. They're a vector for malware and a gift for corporate spies. They're a data spill just waiting to happen. And like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise,' Tynan writes. 'Most companies are in denial about how much their employees are using social nets, as well as what they can do to stop it.' Worse, many are still balking at the fact that having a presence on social networks is rapidly becoming a requirement for doing business. Strict commonsense policies, next-generation firewalls, data leak prevention software — all can decrease your company's exposure to the risks inherent in social networking while still enabling your company to solve problems, burnish its public image, recruit top talent, and generate ideas through social networks."

Block!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bock early, block often, block aggressively. DO NOT GIVE IN.
I'm usually not for stonewalling but this is an exception.

Once one of your PHBs uses myfacetwit to talk to another PHB the business case is made and your 0day browser exploit nightmare begins.

You might as well write a script that opens your boss's port sentry when you recive a call from your boss.

Was that info or a commercial?

[gti_guy]

The article looks like little more than an advertisement for "FaceTime's Socialite or Palo Alto Networks' next-generation firewalls".

man up and block it. you don't need it.

[cornercuttin]

first of all, 90% of companies out there can't really benefit from FB whatsoever. there is no financial benefit whatsoever. so block it, and tell your employees to shut up and quit wasting time. and companies need to quit making FB pages for themselves. you can't promote your own FB page as a company, and then get pissy if people spend time on FB within your organization. not having a FB account is wonderful. it is such a stupid thing.

Re:Social Icon

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a tramp stamp. That seems fitting.

Just block the social game servers

[Leemeng]

Can't you just block the servers used by Facebook games? e.g. Zynga, Mindjolt, etc. The domains and IP ranges should be easy to track down. That should eliminate a major time sink, while still allowing access to FB messages, events, groups, etc which could possibly be used for work.

But really, if you've got someone playing Farmville 6+ hours a day at work, then it is an employee problem, not a security problem...

Re:Facebook Account

[betterunixthanunix]

It depends on network effects. Are many of your friends/family using Facebook? If so, it might be polite to them if you were to sign up.

Or they could be polite and not demand that everyone follow the crowd they are part of. I have my reasons for not joining Facebook, why should I be forced to give in and join? If my friends want to communicate with me, they can use email, the telephone, or even just talk to me in person, so signups or invasions of privacy needed.

Sure, you could say "I can use email for that", but if everyone else would prefer to use Facebook, your not being on it causes them a nuisance.

Too bad, if they consider me to be a nuisance for not signing up for Facebook, then they have a choice. They can suck it up, or they can stop communicating with me. If Facebook is so important to someone that they will get aggravated just because I refuse to use it, to the point of not talking to me, then I am not certain I really want to keep them as a friend. Nobody in my social circle has any doubts as to my feelings on Facebook.