New survey shows usage of Web 2.0 collaboration tools skyrocketing

More people than ever before are using Web 2.0 collaboration tools at work, which has many benefits, but could also pose security risks.

Palo Alto Networks, a company that specializes in enterprise firewalls, recently conducted a survey to look at how employees are using 2.0 tools and how businesses are adapting to such changes.

Matt Keil, product marketing manager with the company and said that the survey showed that many more resources are being consumed by social networking tools than previously thought.

"What that said to us is that a cross-over is occuring from personal use to business use. Much like instant messaging years and years ago came in from personal use and has now been adopted into business."

This also occurred with e-mail, which was originally regarded by many as a time-killer, but is now essential for almost every aspect of business. He said the same trends are occuring with social networking tools.

"People are using it for personal use and you come into the workforce and the newer employees are using it. The first thing that our new VP of marketing asked me is whether or not I'm on facebook. . . . There are 315 million users out there and its growing every day. So, companies are figuring out a way to take advantage of that user-base and also learn more from it and accelerate time to market."

Twitter is expanding, as well. According to the survey, Twitter usage increased more than 250 percent in the past six months.

"What we see, for the most part, applications that are being driven from the end-user perspective. They're not necessarily being driven by management, and users are accessing these applications. They're using them, regardless of what the policies are, and regardless of whether or not the security systems can actually identify them."

And this is where the problems can begin.

Keil said, since the applications can bypass security mechanisms in some cases, companies and agencies have to change their thought processes.

"Companies are dealing with it in a number of different ways. The first thing that they do is they start to lock down these applications. What happens there is that the IT department gets inundated with phone calls. . . . Some of them are putting in larger bandwidth bites and putting together more detailed application usage policies, telling employees that -- 'You can use these applications, but these are the things we're going to do'. They're striking a balance between control and enablement."

Keil said blocking the applications blindly almost never works, and creates resentment in the workplace. On the other hand, simply letting any employee use any application isn't a good business practice, either.

"There are many cases where these applications are going to be beneficial to the company. It is effectively how people are getting their jobs done. So, if that's the case, then I think organizations, agencies, companies -- all need to strike a balance between allowing them to do it, provided that they're meeting their objectives and meeting their goals and doing their job."