The Hindu Business Line : Web’s dynamic avatar

You’ve probably heard of the phrase ‘Web 2.0’. You may have even read some of the definitions describing Web 2.0. Perceived as the second generation of the World Wide Web, Web 2.0 facilitates movement away from static Web pages to dynamic, shareable content.

It is characterised as facilitating the communication evolution of Web-based communities, hosted services and Web applications. While such Web-based communities and Web applications are becoming increasingly important to businesses across sectors, research findings reveal that there is an “absolute” lack of awareness of Web 2.0 among IT managers in large companies around the world.

According to a Websense study, Web2.0@Work Study, when offered a list of Web2.0 types of sites, only 17 per cent of global IT managers identified the sites that fall under the banner of Web 2.0, demonstrating that very few had a complete understanding of the extent to which this type of interactive technology is being used across the Internet today.

China, HK ‘better informed’

According to the study, IT managers in China seemed more aware of the extent of Web 2.0 followed by Hong Kong. But Australia, Canada, Germany and the UK lagged behind the other countries in this respect.

Whether through ignorance or otherwise, a majority (95 per cent) of organisations allow access to Web 2.0 sites.

These large organisations commonly allow access to sites that provide e-mail services such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail or sites that allow access to social networking sites primarily used for business and a few others for personal use as well. The findings further reveal that users in large companies in India apply pressure on their IT managers to allow them access to such interactive sites. In contrast, there seemed to be less pressure coming from users in large companies in Australia, Canada, France and the UK.

Security, a concern

Commenting on the scene, the Websense Regional Director for India and SAARC, Surendra Singh, says: “It is the underestimated security issues and not the lack of awareness of Web 2.0 that has raised concerns.”

While IT managers and CIOs state that Web 2.0 is pervasive in business, the study has revealed the existence of a security gap. “In India, Web 2.0 is becoming increasingly important to businesses across sectors and is no longer limited to personal use. Businesses are taking advantage of such sites to interact with customers and partners. They need a secure Web gateway and data-loss prevention technology,” says Singh.

The Websense study indicates that 67 per cent of Indian IT managers believe that Web 2.0 is necessary for their business.

“A majority of them believe that they are ready to face the Web 2.0 threat but since such sites allow users to put their own content, the possibility of hosting malicious content is rather high. It is practically impossible to block the site. The traditional method of blocking the URL will not work. There is no technology to block data leaks,” says Singh. Websense Security Labs found that 70 per cent of the top 100 most popular Web sites — many of which are social networking or search tools — had at some point hosted malicious content or contained masked redirects to malicious sites.

lnr@thehindu.co.in