Tuesday, October 26, 2004

White Paper: Akonix Warns Public Companies of Instant Messaging Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Risks

Akonix Systems, Inc., the premier provider of business solutions for secure, managed and integrated multi-network enterprise instant messaging (IM), is urging organizations to make sure they have included IM as part of their Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance preparation. As a resource for SOX compliance teams and project leaders, Akonix has published a guide to SOX and IM. This leverages Akonix's extensive experience helping hundreds of corporations comply with similar requirements faced by Financial Services and Energy firms. The guide is available at www.akonix.com/soxandIM.

According to Nemertes Research, as much as 74% of all corporate IM use was initiated by employees without the sanction of corporate IT. In addition, most organizations lack systems for security, control, archiving and compliance -- across both public IM users and enterprise IM systems. For public IM, traditional measures such as firewalls can be ineffective at blocking use, therefore public companies may risk the severe penalties of Sarbanes-Oxley unknowingly. With the first major SOX deadline of November 15 fast approaching, corporations would be well served by adding a review of IM to their compliance efforts for this regulatory act.

Under sections 404 (Management Assessment of Internal Controls) and 105(b), there is an emerging consensus that best practices for compliance means establishing processes for managing electronic communications and a system for archiving relevant messages, and that instant messages should be included in these efforts.

White Paper: Akonix Warns Public Companies of Instant Messaging Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Risks; With November 15 SOX Deadline Looming, Many Companies Face Risks from Unknown and Unmanaged IM Use

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1 Comments:

: Save yourself the time. Look at another company. These guys are good at marketing, bad at QA.; May 04, 2005