Every time an employee visits a website, clicks a link in an email, or opens an attachment, they are testing your business´s web protection. Even if the website is one regularly visited by employees, or even if the email is from somebody within the business, the risk exists that the actions of the employee could start a process that results in a serious financial or data loss.
Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated in the methods used to deliver malware payloads. They will take advantage of any website vulnerabilities to install drive-by downloads, hack online advertising agencies to get their malware-infested adverts placed across the Internet, and use social engineering tactics in order to extract login credentials from employees.
With regard to web protection, part of the problem is you never know when or how the next web-borne threat will occur. A website that is safe to visit today could be compromised tomorrow. The CFO´s email account could be hacked overnight, or an employee could connect their malware-infected mobile device to the network after the businesses has implemented a BYOD policy.
Measures to Enhance Web Protection
There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution to web protection, and most online security experts agree the best way businesses can protect themselves against malware and ransomware is to adopt a multilayered approach to web protection. This approach could include ad blockers, email filters and network monitoring tools depending on the size of business and volume of data to protect.
At the core of the multilayered approach to web protection should be an effective Internet content filter with features such as malicious URL detection and SSL inspection. This is because almost 90% of malware and ransomware is delivered via the Internet and, by blocking access to known risks and websites with a high likelihood of harboring malware, businesses mitigate the chance of an attack.
What Constitutes an Effective Internet Content Filter?
In order to be effective, an Internet content filter has to have to two key elements – flexibility and ease of use. If an Internet content filter is inflexible, the likely outcome is that the filter´s parameters will be set too high in order to ensure a suitable level of web protection. When parameters are set too high, this can prevent the efficient running of the business due to employees being unable to access business-critical websites and web-based applications.
Without ease of use, the degree of flexibility is immaterial. If network managers are unable to find the optimum web protection settings for the business´s requirements because the filter is too complicated to use, a similar scenario to above will occur. In the worst possible scenario, the parameters are set too low – either due to inflexibility or because the filter lacks ease of use – and gateways are left open for cybercriminals to deploy their malware payloads.
WebTitan´s Filters are Easy to Use Yet Feature-Rich
WebTitan Web Protection and security has been in the business of developing enterprise-grade online security solutions since 1999 and we offer a range of Internet content filters specifically developed with flexibility and ease of use in mind – without sacrificing a high level of web protection. Each Internet content filter is feature-rich and includes malicious URL detection, phishing protection, dual antivirus software and SSL inspection.
SSL inspection is the process that decrypts, reads and re-encrypts the content of encrypted websites to ensure they do not contain threats to the network, and to ensure that any request to visit an encrypted website complies with acceptable use policies. This is an essential feature of any Internet content filter, as more than half of the world´s most-visited websites are now encrypted.
A Three-Tier Filtering Mechanism Maximizes Flexibility
In addition to these features to enhance web protection, WebTitan´s Internet content filters use a three tier filtering mechanism to maximize flexibility. Administrators have no control over the first tier (blacklists, SURBL filters and URIBL filters), as these are automatically updated by us to provide real-time web protection against the latest web-born threats as they are identified.
The second tier consists of fifty-three categories (abortion, adult entertainment, alternative beliefs, alcohol, etc.) into which millions of web pages are sorted. Administrators can select which categories they do not want their employees to access – or those with high risk factors – with the click of a mouse via our centralized, web-based management portal.
Finally, administrators can use the keyword filters to fine-tune their category selections. This level of granularity allows for websites containing certain words to be blocked without blocking the category into which they fall. Keyword filters can also be used to block downloads using the file extensions most commonly associated with malware and ransomware.
Enhance Your Business´s Web Protection Easily with WebTitan
If you would like to enhance your business´s web protection, and prevent employees downloading malware and ransomware, speak with us about a free trial of WebTitan´s Internet content filters. Our free trial gives you the opportunity to see how easy they are to use in your own environment and evaluate their effectiveness at protecting your network, your data and your users.
WebTitan is available in a choice of deployment options – either as a virtual software appliance installed behind your firewall, or as a cloud-based solution implemented via a redirection of your DNS system settings. If you are in any doubt about which is the best deployment option for your business, our team of Sales Technicians will discuss your current web protection with you and make recommendations.
All of our Internet content filters are compatible with all operating systems and scalable up to 60,000 users. They are quick to deploy, have an auto-configuration feature and can be integrated with management tools such as LDAP and Active Directory so that permission roles can be imported quickly and easily.
