What to Look for in Secure Collaboration Tools

Network World — This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

Despite monumental enterprise efforts to secure information, data breaches continue to top headlines, in part because of the way employees collaborate and share data. What's needed are enterprise-level secure collaboration tools.

The growth in mobile tech, the consumerization of IT and the rise of cloud computing are creating additional security challenges. Never before has the need to equip users with a secure, easy way to share information been as important, because if IT doesn't do it, users will take matters into their own hands.

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In many regards, they already have. From 2008 to 2010, mobile storage devices including USB thumb drives, CDs and DVDs became common vehicles for transferring large amounts of data. Simple to use and relatively inexpensive, these devices were the ideal IT workaround for business users not wanting to deal with complex FTP servers.

A steady stream of news stories has raised awareness of the security and compliance risks associated with these devices and how easy it is for them to be misplaced, lost in transit or stolen.

During this same time frame, a growing number of consumer technologies began making their way into corporate environments, like peer-to-peer (P2P) services then enable users up against a tight deadline to send an email that the corporate email system rejected as too large.

Today personal smartphones and tablets are penetrating the workplace in increasing numbers. Included on these devices are often free and low cost consumer apps that employees have downloaded for personal use.

Business users are quickly embracing the anytime, anywhere data access that these devices offer. They're accessing email, file sharing and other collaboration services from almost any device, especially iPads, which few enterprises have authorized for use.

Regaining control

Employees need to do their jobs; IT needs to equip them to do so by offering "whitelisted" or approved apps that answer the same need, while providing IT the necessary control and insight over corporate data. [Also see: "AT&T's Toggle to deliver enterprise apps to Android phones"]

The collaboration and file sharing space is quickly growing as established enterprise veterans, startups and consumer-focused providers answer the growing need for mobile file sharing solutions. When conducting your search, it is important to remember not all collaboration tools are equal. There is a vast difference between those developed for consumers and those developed specifically for enterprise organizations. To help IT regain control over corporate data being shared via mobile devices, consider the following:

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