Mail/Web Filtering
As organisations grow increasingly dependent on the Internet to communicate with customers, partners and employees, the Web browser is fast becoming the universal window into mission-critical communications and information. This has many advantages for the enterprise: Web-based applications and protocols are fast, inexpensive and easy to deploy and manage.
But these benefits come at a price. When every user on the network has a Web browser, every user also has the means to negatively affect the network infrastructure-whether intentionally or not. Despite their ability to help users communicate more efficiently, evolving applications such as Web browsing, instant messaging (IM), Web-based email, and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing bring numerous risks to the enterprise. These risks include:
- Decreased employee productivity brought about by personal, non-business-related surfing
- Increased legal liability due to the loss of private or protected information-or due to the downloading of copyrighted information
- Intellectual property loss leading to decreased competitive advantage
- Decreased network availability resulting from bandwidth-hogging file-sharing applications or accidentally downloaded viruses.
It's no longer enough to focus on external threats-on "keeping the bad guys out." Organisations must also control user communications over the Web so that they can "keep the good guys good."
Firewalls to Protect. Proxies to Control.
At the perimeter of the corporate network, firewalls and intrusion detection systems provide excellent protection against external attacks. But they are not designed to control users from within-via authentication, authorisation, logging, reporting or policy enforcement-in order to create a productive, safe Web environment.
For more information on Mail or Web Filtering, please see the product links below:
