After my posting last night regarding Skype insecurity in the work place, I was contacted by their PR agency. They directed me to a few references regarding this topic. Under the guise of information sharing, I’ll direct you to the most interesting link. Their Guide For Network Administrators.
Well, I was shocked. Here is a document dated October of 2006, which discusses methods, to deploy and manage Skype in the enterprise. For me, the most interesting part of the document is the discussion on registry settings to manage configuration options. If your endpoints are in a Windows Active Directory, then you can use GPOs to control settings or registry settings for non-domain systems. There are also some elusive discussions regarding custom MSI builds.
I wouldn’t go so far as to endorse Skype in my enterprise, yet. Nonetheless, I’m encouraged by these findings. Check them out for yourself.
Comments (3)
Of course, Skype is a great thing and the fact that they have released an administrators guide to how to control it WITHIN the corporate network is great but surely the time that you want to use it is when you users are OUT of the corporate network?
Those call costs etc are astronomical when users are using their cellphones or mobiles (as we call them over here!) abroad.
For me, thats when I want to ALLOW the use of Skype. Then when the user is in the internal network and therefore opening up holes in my firewalls etc, I want to control it. GPO's just dont cut it, I need a tool that is going to provide me with dynamic, location based control of the end point. Do you know anything that can do that???
Posted by Markoncarp | February 2, 2007 2:11 AM
Posted on February 2, 2007 02:11
Great question. I haven't figured out a complete solution to that either.
Posted by Andrew Storms | February 2, 2007 10:01 AM
Posted on February 2, 2007 10:01
Its an interesting point and one which, when solved will certainly make someone a lot of money. My take on the marketplace is that companies such as McAffe, Symantec or BigFix will be the players that make a play. All of them have end point security solutions, all of them have the capability, but which ones will manage what is a VERY complex issue....
If you want to know my opinion, then I can give one. But I wish to remain unbiased for now. So my advice is to evaluate them all!!
Posted by Markoncarp | February 2, 2007 12:01 PM
Posted on February 2, 2007 12:01