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By Emma Winfield

Posted on 10 Jul 2002 at 14:44

Worse still, IM could prove a more attractive medium for communicating confidential information to outside sources given that it's harder for IT staff to track the contents of the conversation.

Experts believe specially developed enterprise IM applications may hold the key - AOL and Microsoft are already working on tailored versions. IDC senior analyst Robert Mahowald, believes the use of traditional IM packages, where security has been bypassed is favour of ease of use, will decrease. And companies are being encouraged to set the terms by which employees use these applications.

'Businesses will develop policies to deter their employees from using consumer IM, either because they just don't want them to be used period, or because they want to lay the path for the time when they buy business IMs,' said Mahowald.

The availability of safer applications could see IM reach an equal footing with email for corporate communication, but developers and security specialist are urging companies, workers and home users to tread carefully until then.

'Companies should ask "Do we need to allow users access to Internet chat?",' said Simon Edwards, Technical Director of DeadSecure. 'It's a mainstream application now, and carries mainstream threats.'