One of the questions most frequently asked of the WebTitan customer support team is how to block Facebook chat at work without blocking access to Facebook entirely.
Why Block Facebook Chat at Work?
There are many reasons why an organization would want to prevent employees from accessing Facebook. Social media websites can be a drain on productivity. Some employees may spend hours of each day accessing and updating their Facebook account, which is time spent not working.
However, an employee cannot remain productive for a full eight hours each day. By allowing access to Facebook – and other social media sites – employers can actually increase productivity, providing social media site use is kept within acceptable limits.
If employees take short breaks throughout the day and access Facebook for a few minutes every hour, they are likely to be more productive. Morale can also be improved with a little social media site use.
However, there is the question of security to consider and Facebook chat is a particular cause for concern. Many organisations believe Facebook Chat is a security risk. Use of Facebook chat can increase the risk of malware infections. The chat function also lacks the security standards demanded by many organizations and makes it too easy for employees to share sensitive corporate data. Use of Facebook chat is also difficult to police.
How to Block Facebook Chat Without Blocking Facebook Access
With WebTitan Cloud it is easy to block Facebook chat at work without blocking Facebook access entirely. The process takes just a few seconds and is detailed in the video presentation below (and described underneath.)
To block Facebook chat at work, open your WebTitan Cloud administration panel and navigate to “Filtering URL keywords.”
To block Facebook chat you need to add in two blacklisted keywords. Enter in the first keyword:
ajax/updatestatus.php
Then set filter options to ‘find keyword in entire URL’
The second keyword that must be blocked is:
ajax/mercury/send_messages.php
As before, set filter options to ‘find keyword in entire URL’
These two files are used by Facebook chat and if the files are blocked, the Facebook chat will not function, although the Facebook website will still be accessible.
In order for URL keywords to work correctly it is necessary to have the SSL certificate pushed out to the browsers. Further information on how to do this via GPO or manually can be found in the help section on the WebTitan website.
Visit the link below for detailed instructions on how you can download and push out the SSL certificate to browsers.
https://helpdesk.webtitan.com/support/solutions/articles/4000035615-ssl-inspection-certificates