January 2008 — News
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Web 2.0 in Education: Trends for 2008
And GTISC isn't the lone voice raising the alarm over the security risks of Web 2.0.
Earlier this month, the KPMG, a UK-based consultancy, released a report entitled "Risk concerns stall uptake of Web 2.0 technology in the workplace." The report did not focus on education, but on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the business sector, citing slow adoption owing to security concerns. Of 472 executives from around the world surveyed for the report, more than half said that security is a principal barrier to adoption.
Said Crispin O'Brien, Chairman of Technology for KPMG, "Web 2.0 is not just about novel consumer technology, there are real business benefits to be derived from enabling more effective knowledge sharing and collaboration among employees. The challenge for the technology industry is to communicate these benefits to customers effectively and address the concerns that remain around security and relevance to different industries."
Furthermore, just this week, the SANS Institute came out with its own report--"Top Ten Cyber Security Menaces for 2008"--naming Web application exploits, including Web 2.0, at No. 8. Said the report:
Large percentages of Web sites have cross site scripting, SQL injection, and other vulnerabilities resulting from programming errors. Until 2007, few criminals attacked these vulnerable sites because other attack vectors were more likely to lead to an advantage in unauthorized economic or information access. Increasingly, however, advances in XSS and other attacks have demonstrated that criminals looking for financial gain can exploit vulnerabilities resulting from Web programming errors as new ways of penetrating important organizations. Web 2.0 applications are vulnerable because user-supplied data cannot be trusted; your script running in the users' browser still constitutes "user supplied data." In 2008, Web 2.0 vulnerabilities will be added to more traditional programming flaws and Web application attacks will grow substantially.
And related technologies didn't get off the hook either. Again, exploits against converged devices, such as smart phones and iPhones, were named the No. 4 threat. And Web-based digital media technologies were actually listed as the No. 1 threat category for the ways in which they create vulnerabilities within Web browsers.
All of this, for consumers, is fairly meaningless. For businesses, it's a significant hurdle. But for schools, it's only one of many concerns posed by collaborative and Web 2.0 technologies. It's the major one for IT; but for administrators and teachers, perceptions of risks for students and time wasting are also major concerns. More than half of the K-12 schools in the United States block students from social networking sites entirely, according to a report released this summer by the National School Boards Association, "
