CIO.com

Nine Consumer Technologies CIOs Fear

By C.G. Lynch

Some of them get it, and some of them don't. That's what our consumer technology survey found when we polled 311 IT decision makers about their views on consumer technologies in the enterprise. The survey found that 54 percent of respondents believe consumer applications are "inappropriate for corporate use," while more than a third say they take the draconian measure of shutting down any unsupported technology as soon as they detect it.

So we drilled down and asked them what consumer technologies make them cringe the most. The question was very simple: Which of the following consumer technologies pose the greatest threat to your organization? The respondents were allowed to select only one. And while there was a clear consensus on the number-one threat, other technologies struck notes of anxiety for survey respondents. Read on to see what they found worrisome, and feel free to add your comment to the mix, including any consumer IT threat we might have missed.

Threat No. 2: Consumer E-Mail

There are plenty of reasons for 18 percent of IT decision makers to list consumer e-mail applications such as Gmail and Yahoo as their top threat. For one, these apps carry the potential for malicious code to run within JavaScript, says Chris Wysopal, CTO of security vendor Veracode. Gmail itself had this problem, as noted by a 14-year-old who claimed he found such a flaw. In addition, it's easy for employees to store sensitive data on consumer e-mail. In this CSOonline.com article, a man who allegedly stored company files (containing intellectual property) on his Yahoo account left the company for a competitor and then deleted the account shortly thereafter to stymie investigators.