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Enterprise Friendly Skype Only Weeks Away |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Tuesday, 26 September 2006 |
Skype is reportedly making moves toward a new version of Skype that
will change one of the fundamental problems corporate network
administrators have against the program.
According to reports, Skype will release a Beta version of the softfone
that administrators can force to use standard network proxy connections
and can disable up to hald a dozen features such as file transfers.
To ensure Skype works easily in a consumer environment the company has
taken a great deal of care to make the Skype client adaptive to its
environment and almost impossible to connect as the proprietary
protocols it uses remain a secret.
This works against network security administrators as it is extremely
difficult to ensure the software is behaving well and has not been
hijacked by malicious attackers.
This lack of transparency and management has so far made Skype an enemy
of enterprise security adminstrators despite the fact that some 30 per
cent of Skype's 113 million registered users say they use it for
business.
At the IDC European Forum in Paris, Skype's vice president of telecommunications and Skype
for business, Michael Jackson told CIO magazine the company has acknowledged that Skype makes life tough to control.
There was a rumor we disrupt networks to get around things,"
Jackson told the CIO journalist. That started, Jackson said, "because we design things for
consumers so they work in any network environment. The back end of that
is, it works in any network environment." That makes it difficult for
enterprises to block the software, he said.
Skype has found an ally in sometimes-partner Intel which had
concerns about existing version of Skype on its own network according
to teh report.
Intel 's CIO, John N.
Johnson, explained that Skype was in use at Intel because some employees installed Skype on their
own initiative.
"What if some vulnerability developed, or if someone came up with a
way to use it as a transport into the enterprise? We couldn't tell who
was using it, or where, if it needed to be patched," Johnson told the journalist at the forum.
So the two company's worked together to meet Intel's security
requirements, said Johnson.
"It doesn't go straight out onto the
Internet any more," he explained which allows Intel to cut off the software's network access if
a security problem is identified.
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