Microsoft released an updated version of Outlook Connector Social Tuesday, July 13, 2010. This connector is committed to integrating social users in social networking, contacts and all updates in your Outlook client. The same Outlook client and the same workstation with a host of internal communications that may contain not just the sensitive corporate information, but personal identifiable information and payment card data.
This feature is integrated into Outlook 2010, but is also available for Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 with the installation of Outlook Connector's social programs.
When use the Social Outlook Connector, the user has added a panel showing: a profile picture, social networks that the user is activated, any previous message or status updates to the online profiles and e-mails and previous meetings.
Networking Social Issues
Many companies restrict access to networks and software web sites, and have policies that instruct employees to refrain from using them at work. While corporate security privacy and departments are still trying to control and classify information, users are showing that they want a social network environment more smoothly.
New features and software for social networks have the potential to save public networks seamlessly with internal corporate communications. At present, the social connector is read-only tool, since it lacks the ability to send a message to social networks through Social Outlook Connector. That does not necessarily mean that the add-on will always remain so.
The integration of social networks can also pose a problem for Human Resources departments but not all information published or shared networks is appropriate in a business. This could leave a business open to requests or complaints due to the sensitive, nonpublic information posted on social networking, but seen in a corporate application.
Protecting your corporate information from public disclosure
Any previous efforts to avoid loss of data (DLP) should complement this situation too. Email and Internet communication, even without the social connector, are one of the main vectors of data loss, and Social Outlook Connector uses both.
Blocking sites with a network firewall, web filter, or a proxy server can maintain the separation, while the user is in the office. Unfortunately, more traditional products web filtering, they have the ability to restrict access, while employees are out of the filtering infrastructure. Several companies have started moving to filtering web proxy servers available tag anywhere you can take to protect users and corporate information in a consistent manner. This can help networking sites apart from corporate assets and information, prevention of work-installed connectors.
Perhaps the best way to prevent employees from misusing Outlook Connector social networking is something that security professionals have been saying for some time: to eliminate the rights of users administrative. Administrative access is required to install the software social networking. If your company does not grant administrator access to users, their work can be easy as the administrator access is required to install the Outlook Connector Social Network and connectors actual site.
Honest communication with users is essential to avoid a backlash from users who just see the heavy hand of Homeland Security to prevent users of social network interaction.
Conclusion
Social networking has become the Internet equivalent of the proverbial water source. Unlike the source classic water where employees gathered to talk and gossip, we are now inviting all friends and friends of friends of employees. Not all links are trusted, or even whether they should ask. As social networking services such as Outlook Connector to continue its foray into the corporate environment, the security departments need to maintain a strong and understandable stance to protect society from improper disclosure.
Companies need to use a multiple approach to protect confidential information successfully. Companies must create clear and concise policies that instruct both inappropriate and appropriate use of social networks. Many include statements are not to use your corporate email address unless it is authorized to make corporate communications company. Companies should consider restriction of access network with a technology solution content filter or otherwise.
Chad Boeckmann
CISSP, GSEC
http://www.securedigitalsolutions.com
More security whitepaper information at http://www.securedigitalsolutions.com/articles_whitepapers.php
WST: 4.5 Investment Banking Training – Valuation Proxy for PE Ratios
|
G-U-M (Butler) Proxabrush Snap-On Refills, Tapered 8 ea
$1.98
Model Number 624For use with 625 Proxabrush? Snap-On HandleAntiBacterial* Bristle Protection#1 Interdental brand Removes plaque between teeth as effectively as string floss** Only interdental brand with antibacterial bristle protection* Nylon coated wire protects dental restorations. Snap-On systems allows you to easily snap new refills onto the handle. Multipurpose tapered design.* Bristles have …
|
|
Epoxy Putty 4OZ PRO-PROXY EPOXY 20
$5.99
Hercules, 4 OZ, Pro-Poxy Epoxy 20, Seals, Mends, Bonds & Repairs Almost Anything Even Under Water, Single Stick 2 Part Epoxy Compound Mixes Quickly & Easily & Adheres To Metals, Masonry, Wood, Glass, Ceramics & Some Plastics, Can Be Applied To Wet Or Damp Surfaces….
|
|
Stomp Rocket Super High Performance Stomp Rocket
$14.60
Stomp on the launch pad to send this rocket up to 400ft in the airFeatures include: •The original Stomp Rocket that started the stompin revolution•Taje this to the park or beach and watch how many children and adults you get wanting to play•comes with 6 rockets and 6 flame stickers to put on•Refill rockets available•schools use all of our stomp rockets to teach distance, t…
|
|
Skadden: Power, Money, and the Rise of a Legal Empire
$11.70
In this unprecedented look at the culture of American lawyering, Lincoln Caplan shows us Skadden’s origins in the white-shoe postwar legal world and its rise to preeminence in the era of Drexel Burnham Lambert – the firm’s largest client in the eighties. Skadden is revealed as a place that prizes opportunists but which also created a $10 million program to support public-interest lawyers. In Capla…
|
|
When the Duke Returns
$1.12
The Duchess of Cosway yearns for a man she has never met . . . her husband. Married by proxy as a child, Lady Isidore has spent years fending off lecherous men in every European court while waiting to meet her husband. She’s determined to accept him, no matter how unattractive the duke turns out to be. When she finally lures Simeon Jermyn back to London, his dark handsomeness puts Isidore’s w…
|
|
Patient or Pretender: Inside the Strange World of Factitious Disorders
$19.95
Recounts the case histories of factitious disorder patients who make themselves ill as a way of gaining emotional fulfillment and recognition. They take playing sick to pathological extremes, profoundly affecting their lives as well as the lives of those who support them. In these pages, readers will find a group of cases so bizarre that they challenge the imagination and, at times, medical knowle…
|
