Facebook application released to help employees communicate securely

A new application has been launched to help employees use social networking sites to communicate securely at work.

Social networking sites’ popularity is on the rise, as they become a tool for communicating, whether for personal or business reasons. However, up-and-coming networks, such as Facebook, are also becoming a concern for enterprises that want to avoid adverse impact from employees sharing company information in public groups.

Companies have no control over the information written by their employees in these groups, which aren’t protected by corporate firewalls. Whether these Facebook forums are designated as open, closed or secret, there are no corporate checks to authenticate that members belong to a firm. Organisations need to be aware of possible exposure of information using Facebook that would normally be under tight control, either accidentally or intentionally. Corporations also realise that to be able to give them a ‘competitive-edge’ they need to embrace the Web 2.0 revolution underway.

WorkLight, an enterprise 2.0 company, has launched Workbook in the UK, a Facebook application that allows employees to use the social networking site to communicate securely. The application has the same look and feel as Facebook, and is employee-driven, but it adheres to the strictest corporate security standards.

WorkLight said, with WorkBook, employees can securely use Facebook to:

? Find colleagues by name, location, department, project and area of expertise

? Collaborate with peers using familiar Facebook capabilities

? View up-to-date, corporate-specific information about peers such as status, department, role and location

“Social networking sites' popularity is on the rise, as they become a tool for communicating, whether for personal or business reasons.

? Receive general and personalized company news directly from a Facebook news feed

? Create groups around shared interest areas and work-related projects

? Setup Q&A forums with colleagues to get quick answers

WorkLight added that WorkBook provides businesses with:

? Secure provisioning that ensures the application can be used only by authorized employees

? Information security – corporate-related information is visible only to employees

? Compliance with existing security policies – enterprise security integration authenticates WorkBook users via corporate authentication facilities, enforces access control policies and supports Single Sign-On (SSO)

? Integration with the company’s directory or applications to augment information from Facebook profiles