The exploit kits currently in use — RIG for example — contain multiple exploits for known vulnerabilities. Most of the vulnerabilities are old and patches have been available for months or years, although zero-day vulnerabilities are occasionally uploaded. Exploit kits are also updated with recently disclosed proof-of-concept code. Keeping browsers and plugins up to date and using a top antivirus solution will provide a good level of protection, although businesses can further enhance security by using a web filter.
Web filtering for businesses ensures that any attempt to access a website known to host an exploit kit will be blocked. Phishing is one of the biggest threats faced by businesses. Phishing is a method of obtaining sensitive information by deception, such as impersonating a company in an attempt to obtain login credentials or to fool employees into making wire transfers to bank accounts controlled by criminals. A spam filter can prevent the majority of malicious messages from reaching inboxes, although some phishing emails will make it past the perimeter defenses, especially emails containing links to malicious websites.
A web filter provides an additional level of protection against phishing by preventing users from visiting malicious websites sent via email and social media posts. When an attempt is made to visit a known malicious website, access will be blocked, and the user will be directed to a block screen.
A web filter can also be used to enforce safe search on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This will help to prevent inappropriate website content from being accessed through search and image search results. Employees can waste an extraordinary amount of time on the Internet.
Allowing unfettered access to all website content can result in a considerable reduction in productivity. If every employee wastes an hour a day on the Internet instead of working, a company with employees would lose hours a day, hours a week, and 26, hours a year.
A sizeable loss. A web filter can be used to block access to websites such as gambling, gaming, and social media sites — all major drains on productivity. With Mimecast Web Security, you can: Implement proactive defenses to block web threats that deliver malware or that are part of phishing attacks. Keep employees productive on the web by blocking access to business-inappropriate websites. Protect remote and mobile workers and apply consistent security and controls to all devices on and off the network.
Reduce the use of shadow IT by monitoring and blocking uncontrolled use of cloud applications. Protect guest Wi-Fi users by blocking access to malicious and inappropriate sites. Improve visibility and reporting with quick and simple visualizations of key metrics like top accessed domains, blocked domains, and site categories.
Review additional web security resources and best practices Get Resources. How Mimecast web filtering works By adding security and monitoring at the DNS layer, Mimecast makes it easy to protect against malicious web activity initiated by user action or malware.
Add Mimecast Email Security for integrated defense Mimecast Web Security is the perfect addition to Mimecast's proven email security services. How Does Web Filtering Work? Why Is Web Filtering Important? What are the types of Web Filtering? There are different types of web filtering which include: Browser-based filters - Usually these type of web filters come in the form of browser extensions or add-ons. These filters are easy to implement, but businesses don't typically implement these web filters as they are less robust.
Search Engine Filters - A type of web filtering that blocks unsuitable content from appearing in the results of a search engine. Client-side Filters - These types of web filters are installed directly onto an end user's device, making this a tough solution for organizations to use at scale. Content-limited ISPs - A type of web filtering where internet service providers block certain websites for all users who subscribe to their service. Network-based Filters - A web filtering solution that protects users at scale by filtering malicious or distracting websites across an entire network.
Network-based filters are usually managed from a single administrator console. Internet filters are frequently deployed as an added layer of defense against external threats that can be transmitted through compromised and malicious websites. As government and healthcare organizations need to access a large quantity of sensitive data as part of providing critical services, they are often targeted for ransomware attacks.
There are well over 1 billion sites currently on the world wide web, and approximately new websites are created every minute! With such a massive influx of information, how can web filtering keep up? The two core components of identifying the websites that will be managed by your internet filtering software are its whitelists and blacklists.
Whitelist: A whitelist aka an allowed list is a list of the websites domains , URLs, and ports that you would specifically like to allow on your network.
Whitelisting is typically used in a deny by default approach when administrators would like to block access to the entire internet except for the websites on the whitelist. Blacklist: A blacklist aka a blocked list is a list of the websites domains , URLs, and ports that you would specifically like to block from your network.
Manual blacklisting-only approaches are typically used when administrators want to allow access to the majority of the internet with a few exceptions. Before manually configuring whitelists and blacklists, it helps to know the difference between a domain and a URL as they can be used in unique ways to further refine your internet filtering configuration. URL filtering is best used to make unique refinements to an existing whitelist or blacklist.
Internet filtering software with a category filtering database is designed to help network administrators manage their desired content restrictions more efficiently by allowing them to seamlessly block or allow millions of websites across hundreds of predefined categories in just a few clicks. Category filtering is incredibly useful for blocking websites based on specific intents such as increasing productivity, preventing access to obscene content, and blocking access to websites that are known to be compromised by malware.
Using port filtering, you can block access to network ports that are used for specific functions such as File Transfer Protocol FTP , torrenting, and proxies.
While some web content filtering technologies use keywords to identify potentially objectionable content, a keyword filtering approach often leads to false positives. This unintentional over filtering of content based on keywords is known as the Scunthorpe problem ; with keyword filtering in place any web pages related to Scunthorpe — an industrial town in Lincolnshire, England — will be wrongfully filtered.
This next section covers the general steps you can take to use a web filter in your company. Web and application filtering solutions are capable of much more than simply blocking websites and applications — the best internet filters come with a variety of features designed to provide you with the exact content filtering configuration needed to manage your network. As part of your internet management strategy, you can use internet monitoring in tandem with internet filtering.
User context is important. What is considered an inappropriate website for one user may be required by another user to perform their work. With the wide variety of users connecting to your network, your web filter needs to include granular customizations for your blacklists.
0コメント