U.K. businesses ban IM over security concerns

Nearly three-quarters of U.K. businesses have banned the use of instant messaging (IM) citing security concerns, reports IM supplier ProcessOne.

The research noted that 88% of IT directors were concerned about the security risks created by employees using Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and other IM services, with 56% citing the loss of sensitive business information as a primary concern.

Despite this, only 12% of those surveyed said that their company kept an audit trail of IM messages sent by employees using free public IM software.

The research also shows that 74% of those surveyed think IM could provide valuable collaboration benefits to their organization. According to ProcessOne, the research indicates that currently security fears are overriding the opportunity that U.K. businesses have to increase collaboration and business productivity.

"It is a shame that more businesses in the U.K. aren't taking advantage of the benefits that instant messaging can bring," said Mickaël Rémond, CEO of ProcessOne.

"Many organizations are torn between wanting to maximize security or gain collaboration and productivity benefits, and clearly maintaining security is winning at this point. However, businesses need to ask themselves whether taking such a knee-jerk reaction as completely banning the use of IM is really the best option for the company.

"Clearly, everyone recognizes the benefits that IM can bring. However, the challenge will be for businesses to look for strategies that enable them to reap the rewards without putting themselves at risk of a security breach," added Rémond.

Rising fuel prices increase cost of IT

IT departments are facing higher costs following a decision by the world's largest IT distributor to pass on the cost of rising fuel prices.

Ingram Micro has said it will charge its reseller partners for freight - an extra cost that willl inevitably be passed on to end users.

"Past practice has seen Ingram Micro absorb significant annual freight costs for shipping the products it distributes to resellers. Rapidly rising fuel costs mean that this practice can no longer be continued. Accordingly, Ingram Micro will from now on recover the full cost of freight by means of a freight charge on all [reseller] orders," the company said.

The cost of a barrel of oil is rising, pushing up transportation prices. Crude oil is over $145 a barrel on world markets, compared to $90 in January, according to the AA fuel report for that month.

Doss Etter, director of external affairs at the Freight Transport Association, said there has been a 40% increase in the price of diesel over the past year as a result of increasing oil costs.
"It is inevitable that the extra costs will be captured by an increased price," added Etter. He said transport costs probably make up 1% to 2% of the overall cost of high-value goods such as computers.

Stephen Alambritis, head of public affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said the extra costs of transportation of products and services is already being passed on to businesses.

"They are feeling the pinch and are being charged more for receiving products," said Alambritis.

He said in a recent poll of FSB members, 90% said the rise in fuel costs were impacting their business enough for them to predict no business growth over the next 12 months. A total of 40% said if the fuel costs continued to increase they would have to lay off staff.

The FSB has called on the government to cancel the proposed 2p rise in fuel duty.

Goldmine for cybercriminals

Cybercriminals are not only using new technologies to propagate cybercrime, but are also turning to social engineering to snare victims.

According to Trend Micro's latest threat round-up and forecast report, the first six months of 2008 saw an upswing in web threats, but steady decreases in adware and spyware.
The tools and technologies used to create popular social networking sites have become a goldmine for cybercriminals, said Trend Micro.

In March, Trend Micro discovered that more than 400 phishing kits for generating phishing sites were targeting top Web 2.0 sites in the areas of social networking, video sharing and VoIP.
Recently, a new form of phishing e-mail warned about phishing e-mails before attempting to trick readers into clicking on a link that led to a fraudulent site.

Spammers are also recycling old techniques. In February, Trend Micro investigated a voice phishing ('vishing') attempt.

The voice message appeared convincing, with all links leading to legitimate target pages, but included a fraudulent phone number for recipients to call to reactivate their account, which had been supposedly placed on hold.

When they called the number, users were asked for their bank card number and Pin, unwittingly opening their bank accounts to the phishers.