Secure Instant Messaging: Protect Your Business

It is obvious that instant messaging is an asset to business. With instant messaging, users can communicate more quickly and efficiently with one another than just about any other form of long distance communication. Because of the sensitive nature of many business and professional communications, it is imperative that companies have secure instant messaging. Unfortunately, with IM’s rise in use, hackers have developed ways to attack computers through instant messages. Like email, instant messages can carry threats to computers in the form of viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, among others.

A good deal of the threat comes from the fact that public instant messengers don’t encrypt messages. Additionally, instant messengers allow for the sharing of any file on the user’s computer, so hackers can have access to all those files. And since instant messaging is a relatively new technology, PC security software has not been designed to combat many IM threats. There are several ways hackers can take advantage of these attributes of IM and cause mischief:

• Network Sniffers — These are programs that hackers use to find information online. Using sniffers, hackers can view the content of entire IM conversations and gain access to company information.
• Worms — A worm is similar to a virus in that it can infect a computer and cause problems ranging from annoying to malicious. Unlike a virus, a worm can infect a computer without any human action, such as opening a file. Worms can also multiply on a single computer and send themselves to other computers using the same server.
• Backdoor Trojan Horses — A Trojan horse appears to the victim as a safe file or program, and once it is opened, the hacker can create a backdoor, allowing access to the victim’s computer along with all their files and saved passwords. Classic Trojan horse programs are usually blocked by firewalls, but Trojans sent via instant messages aren’t blocked because the IM user appears to have given permission for the hacker’s access.
• Impersonation — Once a hacker has access to a victim’s files, he can use this information to impersonate the victim. The hacker can send instant messages to people on the person’s buddy list and gain information from the people he contacts.

To prevent others from gaining access to company information, as well as damage to employee’s computers, it is important to have secure instant messaging. The best way to do this is to use an enterprise instant messenger like the one offered by Brosix.com, because they encrypt all IM communications. They also secure instant messaging by allowing the administration to restrict IM use to authorized users. With secure instant messaging, a business can get the benefits of instant messaging without the headaches.