Collaborative tools - What do you use? How did you evaluate?

[Daniel-Nash1]

There are collaborative tools like Skype, Slack, Google Voice, and here is a list of 28 tools: https://www.proofhub.com/articles/best-online-collaboration-tools-business. Many tools are available, some are free and for a fee. 

What do you use and recommend?  As security professionals, how have you evaluated your tool/recommendation for vulnerabilities used by your business?

[dcontesti]

So quick question, are you looking for internal use only or external as well?

I does make a small difference security wise.

d

[Daniel-Nash1]

The question I pose would be for both.  I had some discussions with a couple of organizations - both volunteer and business.  Communications via Skype work well internally though externally I have recommended Slack.  With all the media I am interested in what others are using/recommending and to raise awareness that communication is occurring.  We should be aware and recommend well-vetted solutions.

[CraginS]

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@Daniel-Nash1 wrote:

There are collaborative tools like Skype, Slack, Google Voice, and here is a list of 28 tools: https://www.proofhub.com/articles/best-online-collaboration-tools-business. Many tools are available, some are free and for a fee. 

What do you use and recommend?  As security professionals, how have you evaluated your tool/recommendation for vulnerabilities used by your business?

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Daniel,

Using a systems engineering process to select among solution (tool) options, start with identifying your requirements for the solution before leaping to an answer or recommendation. You have posed a question along the lines of, "Here is a list of vehicles, including a jeep, a soccer mom SUV, a BMW sedan, and a Dodge Ram truck. Which would you drive?" If we do not clarify what we need it for, my answer is likely to be totally wrong for you. I may need to haul construction tools and lumber, and you may need to take the kids' carpool to the zoo.

So, to help folks here aid you in selecting solid collaboration tools, what are your requirements? Be realistic and list both needs (requirements ) and wants ("desirements"). Do you need collaborative writing in a paper or report? Do you need live team conversation? Do you need asynchronous group chat with topic threads? Are all the collaborators supported by the same digital infrastructure, or do you need broadly support publicly available tools?  What is the trust level among the collaborators, and what are your information security needs? How strong do you need identification and authentication services for your collaborators to be? Do you need to support anonymity for collaborators? What are the external and internal threats to your enterprise?

I am sure you can think of more questions to elicit your solution needs. 

If you can refine your needs and wants and give us your preliminary thoughts on the direction to go (not your preferred solution) the community here should be able to give you a lot of helpful feedback. For an example of such a discussion, take a look a the recent thread on survey tools.

Good luck, and best regards,

[Steve-Wilme]

We use Skype, Slack, Jira, Confluence, MS teams etc

But there is really little substitute for sitting down and discussing things across the table or whiteboarding things.

"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools" does remind us that at times the tooling gets in the way of clearly communicating with customers and colleagues.

[CISOScott]

One thing to keep in mind when using "free" tools is to check/review the End-User License Agreement (EULA) and other legal agreements. You may not realize that using it in a government or corporate environment sometimes invalidates the "free" portion of the use agreement. Or you may be agreeing to them being able to use your data in any way or manner they see fit. You could be agreeing to have your data scanned and sold/aggregated to 3rd parties. You could be agreeing to install other software, etc. 

These are just some of the "gotcha's" of using free or trial software.