WebMarshal 6

The internet is a mine of information, and some of it can seriously damage your organisation's health. An infected web page can load a mass of spyware and other horrors onto a networked PC, which then goes on to infect the rest of the system. Even when this threat is countered by industrial-strength antivirus software, the web content itself may be illegal, leaving the organisation liable to prosecution.

WebMarshal sets out to address these issues in a number of ways. For starters, multiple real-time blacklists are used to control access to undesirable websites, but WebMarshal doesn't just rely on regular updates to keep up to date - it also monitors page content and updates its own blacklists as it runs.

Extra control comes from site categorisation in conjunction with WebMarshal's user lists. These contain authorised users - either individuals or IP addresses. Individuals need an ID and password, which is validated before they can access the internet. Users can be imported from various other sources, such as NetWare's NDS and Active Directory, enabling WebMarshal to be fully integrated into existing security.

WebMarshal provides comprehensive user-activity reporting, even down to the bandwidth taken up by individual users, and can log requests to both an SQL Server database and a text file for later analysis and archiving.

The filtering system is extremely flexible, even providing a quota-management system that can be usedto allow users personal browsing time.

Data is checked for text, file type and size, but web content comes in many forms, so simply checking web pagesfor inappropriate text and images isn't enough. WebMarshal also checks for P2P activity, file downloads and uploads, plus streaming content. Although rule-based content filtering is common, it can be awkward to set up and maintain, and errors can leave gaps in security, so WebMarshal provides a tool to allow you to test how a policy works before committing it to use.

A further level of security is available through WebMarshal's support for third-party plug-ins. Spyware and virus scanners from reputable companies such as McAfee, Norman, PestPatrol, Sophos and Symantec can be installed, although these inevitably increase the cost of the final installation.

WebMarshal would normally be used as a proxy server, which means that all the network's browsers would needto be configured to use it as a proxy. However, it can be integrated with Microsoft's ISA Server, or it can be chained with other proxy servers to reduce the amount of reconfiguring required.

WebMarshal provides a wide range of content filtering and internet access options and has modest requirements. However, Unified Threat Management systems offer similar facilities and also include a firewall, so WebMarshal may not be an appropriate or cost-effective solution in all cases. But its ability to integrate with other products and incorporate third-party software adds welcome flexibility. And if your organisation prefers a strength-in-depth approachto network security, it's a reasonable investment - just note the current lack of support for Vista.

Author: Ian Parsons