Greynet

What is Greynet?
Greynet refers to applications like messenger, chat, file sharing and media streaming that users belonging to a corporate network download without the permission of their network administrators. The problem with Graynet applications is that they consume corporate time and computer resources. These applications also provide an open door through which end-user systems can be compromised by malware or viruses.

Graynet applications use portagility and encryption to bypass corporate security controls.

Graynet poses three main problems:

Security: Graynets can reveal gaps in a network. These can be compromised by malware or viruses spreading in the end-user systems.

Data protection: Company information can be passed on via the Internet.

Compliance: Employees may use or abuse Graynet's unmanaged communications networks.

The most common uses for gray networks are:

- instant messaging
- Surf the Internet
- Peer-to-peer file transfer
- web conferencing
- Blogging and webmail
- adware / Spyware