Twitter outpaces IM in the Social Enterprise

November 10, 2009 by varidion 1 Comment

In a recent application survey of 200 Enterprises it was found that Twitter was used in 89% of companies monitored, up from 35% in Spring 2009, making it more popular than Instant Messenger.  Amazingly the 250% increment of Twitter resulted in a 775% increase on bandwidth. social_networking The march of Social Networking applications into the Enterprise continues, with Facebook use increased by 192% and Google Apps was found in use at 82% of companies monitored. The facts are simple, you can’t stop the march of the Social Enterprise, your Employees will use these next generation Web 2.0 applications to do their job so best you learn how to manage & control these.  However, there’s the rub, most technologies today can only turn these applications Off or On so restricting access to the good along with the bad.  At Varidion with our Partner Palo Alto Networks we have created a managed security service that allows businesses to fully embrace all the benefits of the Social Enterprise with piece of mind these applications are being used for the right reason.   Call Varidion today to discuss our Managed Security Services.

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Statefull Inspection Swiss Cheese – What’s the Point of your Firewall?

October 20, 2009 by varidion 1 Comment

swiss_cheese

Todays Firewalls

I’m sorry to tell you, its got more holes than a Swiss Cheese! Don’t be alarmed…..      most have.

Why?   They’re just simply out of date….

Basically today’s Web 2.0 applications have technology leapfrogged your security infrastructure, so while you diligently close ports and protocols these Net Generation applications choose another port, or better still masquerade as a valid protocol such as HTTPS so your firewall hasn’t a clue. Worried? You should be.

To restore the firewall as the core of your security infrastructure you need to look deeper into the traffic that’s flowing through it, something yesterday’s firewalls simply don’t and can’t do, that was until Nir Zuk one of the inventors of Statefull Inspection Technology headed back to the drawing board…. The outcome, a truly application aware security device that can accurately identify and classify over 900 of the today’s most dynamic applications irrespective of port, protocol but crucially evasion tactic. So finally the Enterprise can adopt Web 2.0 collaboration tools with the piece of mind they can actually control them.

Today, many Enterprises block applications such as Webex, LogMeIn, Yoics and P2P applications for very obvious reasons, again I have bad news, they are in use, you just can’t see them as they look just like valid http and http/s traffic. The facts are stark, in a recent application usage report of 60 large enterprises representing the behavior of 900,000 users, Peer 2 Peer applications were found in 92% of the enterprises, and web based file sharing in 72% of the companies and guess what; 100% had Firewalls and a further 82% had additional devices such as a Proxy, URL filter or an IPS.

Now that’s a great investment! Upgrade your business today speak to Varidion about an application aware network.

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