Fortune 500 alliance targets web 2.0 security

A newly launched forum of global corporations is aiming to promote awareness of secure use of web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.

The Secure Enterprise 2.0 Forum held its inaugural event in London earlier this week, attracting a number of Fortune Global 500 executives and security experts to raise awareness define industry standards and best practices and facilitate interoperability for the secure use of web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.

The forum has been established on the premise that, due to their popularity with consumers, web 2.0 technologies are present in the enterprise, both with and without the blessing of corporate management and IT departments.

"As the workforce becomes younger and tech-savvy, grassroots adoption of widgets and gadgets, RSS [really simple syndication] feeds, personalised homepages, social networks, instant messaging, blogs and wikis is becoming standard practice within organisations worldwide," said David Lavenda, vice president of product strategy of the forum's founding vendor, Worklight.

The venture-backed developer of web 2.0-based server products has spearheaded efforts to establish the forum, which will examine the security issues for web 2.0 adoption in corporate IT environments.

Lavenda told IT PRO: "Current security policies are failing web 2.0 development and there is a fundamental lack of understanding about how its associated technologies relate to business."

He also said recent research by the Sans Institute that called for security policy training to be built into web application development courses was exactly the kind of work his company established the forum to facilitate.

John Meakin, Standard Chartered Bank group head of information security said: "It is absolutely critical that we maintain trust in our security, while providing our employees with the collaboration and interactivity tools that enable them to operate effectively and be very responsive and innovative for our customers."

"As both a global news organisation and a financial data and analysis provider, we believe safeguarding critical assets must go hand-in-hand with maximising our direct contact with clients," said Simon Riggs, Reuters' global head of IT security.

"Web 2.0 solutions not only increase internal employee productivity and collaboration, but also enhance the interaction with clients using widgets and gadgets and other innovative solutions. This added value cannot come blindly at the expense of security; you've got to consciously trade off the relative risks and benefits."

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