Having secured access to your network with appropriate firewall, virtual private networking and authentication solutions it is necessary to consider the control of material and data that are moving around the infrastructure. Now that email and the Web play such an important role in business communications it is vital to ensure that their use is managed properly to prevent content carried by these channels from introducing threats to the organisation. There is also now a set of statutory obligations placed on every organisation to protect not only its systems but which also places a duty of care on management to safeguard its staff. These laws are designed to ensure that organisations take reasonable steps to prevent staff from being exposed to offensive or indecent material while carrying out their duties.

A number of high profile cases have emphasised the risks of neglecting content control and have resulted in costly and damaging litigation for those involved. These risks now extend to the management of organisations who can now be deemed personally responsible for security failings.

To counter the threats and avoid the risks Presence offers a comprehensive range of email and content control systems to cover every type of email and web content threat for organisations of any size.

Email Content Control

MIMEsweeper is a family of products, each dedicated to providing a class-leading security environment for a particular type of content. MAILsweeper has for several years been the benchmark in the email content control market with millions of users around the world.

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The MAILsweeper system features the ability to monitor and manage email text content for suspicious words and groups of words, analyse attachments for active code, macros, executables and scripts that might be viruses or other potentially harmful payloads even if the code is embedded or disguised in zip or other compressed files or in documents within other documents. The messages can then be quarantined, passed to the anti-virus service, deleted or rejected by the system depending on the rules that impose the security policy.

MAILsweeper has powerful auditing and reporting facilities to allow spam and misuse to be minimised and protect against confidentiality breaches, libels, defamatory or offensive content. A MIMEsweeper add on product, IMAGEmanager, is also available to provide an enhanced level of protection against inappropriate images as part of your security policy.

The other product in this email content control category is E-Mail Filter from SurfControl. This product has similar capabilities to the rival MAILsweeper product. The differentiators between the two products are their relative sophistication and ease of use. We find that MAILsweeper has greater analytical capacity while the SurfControl E-Mail Filter is easier to install and administer. Both products can scale to handle extremely large networks however the lower cost of entry and ease of use of the SurfControl product make it a cost effective solution for smaller networks.

Another manufacturer, Finjan, has a different approach to the issue of email content security. The Finjan SurfinGate for E-Mail system uses patented technologies to scan and analyse email content. The software looks at any active code for suspicious behaviour that may be hazardous to the network. This has the benefit of not needing to rely on “signature” information to identify malicious payloads. As recent rapid virus outbreaks have shown, the relatively short time lag between a new virus release and a signature and a fix being available to prevent and cure any problems leaves a window of vulnerability for new viruses and variants to devastate networks. The Finjan approach closes that window by understanding the function of the code and hence preventing its execution and the damaging aftermath.

Web Content Control

To control content from the Web both MIMEsweeper and SurfControl have products analogous to their email content security systems. Completely unrestrained use of the Web can lead to a number of problems including non-productive staff time, improper use of resources, downloads of potentially hazardous files and programs, indecent or discriminatory material as well as slowing performance of important Internet services. Presence offers a range of solutions to protect your network from inadvertent and malious misuse.

The MIMEsweeper product, WEBsweeper, provides a URL filtering system as well as providing an analysis engine for text content coming from the Web. The system also monitors content for potentially hazardous file types and viruses and passes them to the anti-virus system for inspection. WEBsweeper also provides reports on web usage by individuals to minimise recreational surfing.

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SurfControl Web Filter’s URL database which powers the filtering system is one of the biggest of its type with over a million websites carrying over a billion pages of information. The sites are categorised into forty classifications and the database is automatically updated every day with new sites. SurfControl also offers an extra filter in the form of the SurfControl Instant Messaging Filter which focuses on managing the use of instant messaging and peer to peer networks such as AOL Messenger, Kazaa and the like. SurfControl Web Filter integrates closely with Check Point firewall and VPN systems.

The third product in this category is Websense. This is a long established URL filtering system with an excellent pedigree and reputation. The database it uses contains over two million websites, with categories such as Shopping, Sport, Adult and Banking. Access to each class can be barred or allowed on a user by user basis.

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Finjan too, has a product in this arena, Finjan SurfinGate for Web. This provides a suite of Internet access management tools and reporting along with its unique technology to analyse the code in content arriving from the Web. Once again this technology aims to plug the gap left open by the time lag in the release of harmful files and a conventional signature-based fix being available.

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Each of our product offerings in this solution area has particular strengths which would make it the ideal solution in particular circumstances. We pride ourselves in ensuring that by understanding our clients systems and security objectives we can recommend the products that meet the requirements in the most cost effective manner.

Click above to find out more about Blue Coat solutions

The Proxy SG™ family of appliances includes the award-winning ProxySG 400 Series, 800 Series and 8000 Series. Based on Blue Coat SGOS™, a custom, object-based operating system with integrated caching, these proxy appliances leverage existing authentication systems to enable granular policy enforcement down to the individual user. Blue Coats end-to-end product portfolio includes powerful reporting, policy and configuration management software - delivering a scalable proxy solution for centralised or distributed enterprise environments. Delivered as a rack mountable appliance for simple installation and management, these ICSA-certified solutions easily integrate with existing security and network infrastructure.

The ProxySG 400 enables corporations to extend Web traffic protection and control to the network edge, while significantly reducing the administration and management costs for securing a distributed enterprise. Both the ProxySG 800 and the ProxySG 8000 were designed to meet enterprise requirements for capacity, performance, availability and centralised management. While all three provide the same broad application support and features, the 8000 Series provides an expandable, modular platform for customising disk size, RAM and network interface cards.

The ProxyAV family of appliances integrates with the ProxySG to provide scalability and performance in real-time scanning of Web-based file downloads for viruses, worms and trojans. Pairing the ProxyAV with the ProxySG provides significant advantages for high-speed Web virus scanning that standalone systems cannot match. Both the ProxyAV 400 and ProxyAV 2000 provide the same comprehensive features with easy deployment - and a choice of virus scanning engines from Sophos and McAfee.