Enterprise networks rife with unauthorized apps, study says

Think you know what types of software employees are running on your enterprise network? A new study suggests that you may know a lot less than you think. Employees in most enterprises are circumventing corporate security policies by deploying unauthorized applications, including video viewers, streaming audio, P2P and Google applications, according to a study that will be released next week by next-generation firewall vendor Palo Alto Networks. “It’s assumed that a big portion of the HTTP traffic that corporate networks support is used for Web browsing, such as checking the sports scores or online shopping,” says Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing at Palo Alto. “But what we found was that 90 percent of HTTP traffic is not browsing – it’s Web-based applications like Web mail, instant messaging and Google apps.”

Employees use variety of tactics to circumvent IT policies and misuse the corporate network [Darkreading Article]