ANTenna Blog -- Security

The various elements and components and approaches that comprise Web 2.0 offer large business promise. But they also create large business risk and exposure. Better make sure your security and especially your security policies are up to the challenges.

All the shiny new and not so new features and tools that make up Web 2.0 -- your uploaded content, social nets, Cloud-based apps, wikis, you name it -- are being embraced by business that's outstripping business's implementation of security policies and approaches designed with Web 2.0 in mind.

The deeper levels of communication, community, convenience and connectedness that Web 2.0 promises -- and that many small and midsized business are putting effectively to work -- requires more vigilance and tighter, more clearly defined and enforced security and usage policies, yet most businesses continue to dodge those particular bullets, according to a new survey from Websense.

The problem appears to be composed of equal parts complacency -- belief that existing, traditional security tools are adequate to meet new challenges -- and insufficient understanding of just what Web 2.0 is.

Fully half of the 1300 respondents to the survey failed to identity didn't include Cloud-based apps in their Web 2.0 profiles.

Other findings:

68 percent have no real-time analysis of Web content

Problem is -- among other things -- employees are heavy users of Web 2.0 sites, and the use is getting heavier. Even if your company isn't using Web 2.0 tools for marketing or other business purposes, it's an almost completely safe bet that some of your employees are hitting YouTube or FaceBook, commenting on blogs, cruising to content heavy sites that may also be malware-intensive.

If your business isn't addressing every one of these elements with both appropriate tools and enforceable usage policies, you're not only behind the times, you're putting your business squarely in the sights of the crooks.

New technologies bring new opportunities but they also bring new risks. That chestnut holds up in spades for Web 2.0 in the workplace.

Websense's Web 2.0 analysis can be downloaded here (registration required).

Checked out bMighty's bSecure SMB Security On A Budget yet? The event is available on-demand now.

Learn a few things about budget-conscious security here: