IM security expert: Skype-MySpace is "an IT disaster"

As father to two teenage girls, Don Montgomery is fully aware of MySpace's power.

Yet as VP of marketing at IM security and compliance solutions provider Akonix, there are things about the new Skype-MySpace IM deal that make him nervous.

I spoke to Don late yesterday.

First, he sees some overlap between MySpace users and enterprise users He views younger folks coming into the IT world as likely to have a MySpace page.  That can present enough issues in itself, but tether Skype to MySpace in corporate settings and hoo boy, you're asking for trouble.

"In the corporate world, it (the Skype-MySpaceIM mashup) is an IT disaster," Don told me.  "Skype is an IT challenge, and MySpace is a productivity waster. Now, you have the ability to make Skype calls outside the firewall."

I then asked Don wouldn't just blocking the MySpace URL from your enterprise Web server be a relatively painless solution?

Don is not an advocate of that strategy. He views the "dozens of anonymizers" out there as utilities that could skirt such a URL blockage.

"I would do whatever I can to keep Skype out of my organization," he tells me. "I am advocating a Berlin Wall."

Then I ask Don what exactly his problem is with Skype in the enterprise.

"The unique thing about Skype is its architecture (as a) fully encrypted stream," he says. "It creates a user node using your corporate network, but because Skype uses encryption, you have no idea what is going in and out of that port."

For the record, Don doesn't give MySpace a free security pass either.

"On the MySpace side," he says, you could have a hacked MySpace page taking malicious HTML through an encrypted tunnel."

Do you use Skype in your organization? Does your IT (or you, the IT)  regard it as a security risk? Is that assessment given enhanced gravitas because of the MySpace deal?