White Paper: Six Steps For Implementing An Effective Web Security Solution

Businesses operate in a competitive, fast-paced global economy. It's critical that they connect with customers and partners quickly to address opportunities in real time; otherwise, they fall behind. To excel, businesses adopt new technologies and applications that enable efficient information exchange, collaboration and ultimately, result in increased revenue.

Web 2.0 applications, among the most quickly-adopted technologies today, are now critical tools for many organizations. Once perceived as a means to connect socially, this relatively new medium has been embraced for business use, including marketing, recruiting and technical support. Most businesses maintain a corporate presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and many use Web 2.0 applications to implement company blogs or customer feedback on their own websites. An organization's participation on social networking sites is generally expected—the same way individual company websites became standard years ago. Plus, today's employees expect a certain level of access to social networking sites while at work.

With this in mind, there's a debate between allowing and denying Web 2.0 and social media use in the workplace due to the related security implications. These sites provide valuable capabilities and opportunities, but how do businesses enable access to them without impacting productivity, risking data loss or increasing vulnerability to malware threats? Without access, businesses lose the competitive advantage and mindshare gained from strategic social media engagement.