This week, my federal agency's IT Security blocked the sites of all personal ISP webmail access, as a "severe security risk." IOW, no one can login from my workplace to access any webmail accounts. There has been humongous complaining, mostly, in fact, from IT/tech people, including some at very high managerial levels. We are not sure the ban will last, because of this - there are 2 opposing IT Security factions really battling it out right now, and a lot of animosity among some folks who were once on good terms. Kind of sad, really. We don't need more workplace animosity.

Most of us use our webmail for tech-related communications, because as any techie knows, when you're really into tech stuff, you often do some of your work at home on your own time due to self-motivation, and you want to have email access both at home and work due to this. There are other reasons people use webmail from work, also: there's a rather large & vocal group of employees who use the area's school auto-email notifications about closings, etc, for example, and they're very unhappy too. I think they have a good point too.

Since we have up-to-date McAfee running at full strength in every conceivable place, there is much confusion by everyone over why the webmail blockage is needed. Personally, my ISP already catches all viruses, so it's even more annoying to have this ban - though I realize not all ISPs do this.

I also realize the need for sound security - but is this ban "crossing the line"? Email once seemd to be one of the greatest modern innovations - but then along came viruses - then spam proliferation - and now, email bans entirely. It's like, the Rise and Fall of Email...

Anyone else have such a workplace ban? Also, any comments on why McAfee should not be able to catch worms/viruses possibly transmitted through webmail?