Security and Privacy in Instant Messaging

In the recent time there is huge gain in popularity of Instant Messenger services. In fact there is over 1 billions of messages transfer each day using instant messaging (IM). With increase in popularity, the instant messenger networks are moving towards encrypted communication from plain communication.

Many of IM software send the conservation as the plain text over the internet. This allows anybody to monitor your conservation. There are many tools available on the internet by which anybody can see your instant messages. Many of the user, unknowing all these security concern, communicate private/confidential information through instant messages. This gives the hacker a chance of misuse the private information which can cause the disasters.

Now the use of instant messengers is well accepted and encouraged in the corporate world as the formal communication as it provides a synchronize communication mechanism which is faster than email and cheaper than phones. With the use of instant messaging in an organization, the security has become a concern. This security concern is motivating the IM service provider to provide a secure communication.

There are many add-on tools/utilities available in the market which helps in achieving the secure instant messaging. These utilities not only encrypt and authenticate messages but also the file transfers.

Even though the increase in use and popularity of IM indicates the need of secure IM communication, there are only few IM networks like Skype, Google talk, AOL etc. which provides the security by encrypting the communication. May be in recent future we will see all networks going for secure communication.