Has anybody heard of or been written up in an IT audit for the use of myspace at work?

Oh, and does anyone have any opinions?

If the use of this website violates your IT policy it would certainly be written up in an audit. We have fired employees for abusing the privilege of internet access at work. We pay them to work - not conduct personal business at work. They are allowed to use the bank's internet for personal reasons before work, after working hours, or during lunch only.

My employer uses a security program that blocks access to some internet sites, including MySpace and any personal e-mail. (It has to do with the requirement for IT to backup information, and the inability to backup personal e-mail files.)

Our IT blocks all outside e-mail providers and websites like Myspace. I could only imagine the number of work items that would be lost so employees could see who wrote a comment of their most recent picture....seriously how many Adults have a MySpace..and why? Who has that much time?

CAWorkingGirl,

Well, I'm 45 and yes I have a Myspace account. However, my reason is that I have two sons in the Navy. One stationed overseas and the other is deployed overseas until later this year. Using Myspace is an easy way for us to communicate and trasfer pictures between each other.

I think that this is a valid reason for having it, although I will admit that if this wasn't the case, I probably wouldn't have the account.

Yes, our bank blocks access to any site like this.

We have a lot of people at our institution who use external e-mail and it's never been brought up as a major threat. We have had our External IT Audit's over the past 2 years while myspace has been used by some and nothing has been brought up besides instant messaging (AOL, Yahoo, etc.)which leaves a constant hole in the fire-wall while being used.

Myspace seems to be just basically a web based email service. I don't use it myself personally at work but I was wondering if it was something we might be cited for in the future.

The short answer is 'Yes.'

As I understand it, our IT department was cited in an audit for failing to backup e-mail communications. Because they cannot backup information sent via personal webmail, they blocked access to these sites.

My company also blocks access to a number of sites and categories of websites and myspace is one of them. I personally don't think there are any vulnerabilities or dangers with myspace beyond what is out there on a majority of the web. I think it would be a time-waster more than anything.

IMO, if you address personal use of the internet in your employment policies, the myspace issue would be covered. It is to an advantage to block access to certain sites for the sake of professionalism. For example, even though it might be against policy, you could have a branch employee look up an inappropriate website in customer view.

I will agree that it would be a time-waster more than anything. I understand that there has been some citations in IT audits and I agree to them for record retention purposes.

But if you think about it Banker's Threads (Not knocking the site. I love this resources and the people on it.) has a lot of things prevelant Myspace.

I'm wondering if anyone has heard of any threats to server systems or being vulnerable of being attacked with a virus. I'm thinking more along the lines of it being a security issue. We have just had 2 extensive IT audits. There was one from our regulators and another external and nothing was ever said about it and knew certain personnel used it.

I think Myspace is just a trend though. It won't be as popular and be around for a significant amount of time.

I would also suggest folks be careful, as many employers and prospective employers are looking at myspace accounts to find more about the person.

Good point Bobw, although you have the option to set your profile to private where no one may view it except your accepted "friends". Still there is a back up issue and I've recently consulted an IT expert and phising is very common amongst commercial myspace pages (bands, interest groups, etc...). Myspace admits to having several phising incedents right now and from what I understand they have shoddy security devices in place. I have a personal one I use at home and ran across a phising scam the other day on their bulletin boards. It's not so much the myspace pages but the links that are provided and subjects provided on the bulletin boards.

There are a lot of institutions though who allow this. It would be wise to be a 100% positive that security, patch management, virus and malware protection are in place.