Monitoring Internet usage, part 3

By Linda Musthaler, Currid & Company
Network World Technology Executive Newsletter, 07/30/01

In this final look in our three-part series on monitoring employees' Internet usage, we discuss some of the products you can use to detect and report on misuse of your corporate resources. If you are going to have a " computer acceptable use " policy - and every company should have one - you'll need a tool to help measure compliance and support your claims of non-compliance.

This category of product is sometimes called " Internet access control " or " employee Internet management. " Many of the products perform multiple functions and are often integrated with other security measures your company is likely to use, such as a firewall. Today, we look specifically at the products that allow you to monitor, report and manage how employees use the Internet.

The underlying premise of these products is pretty much the same across the category. You install a filtering component at a control point such as a firewall, proxy server or caching appliance. All requests from your employees to access the World Wide Web go through this control point. The filtering software makes a judgment on whether or not to allow the request to go through. Inappropriate requests - which you have selected based on various parameters - will be blocked at this point. All requests are logged for reporting purposes.

The products below use different filtering techniques and technologies. However, one common element is that every product is highly customizable in terms of who and what you filter. Typically, an administrator will select which categories of Web sites or pages to filter, such as pornography, racism, gambling, shopping, news and a myriad others. The administrator also can select which person, group or PC is barred from accessing each category of sites. So, Joe in marketing can be kept out of shopping sites but Susie in purchasing can be allowed in.

You might think that scrutinizing every single request for a Web page would slow your network to a crawl. To the contrary, the filtering process is very quick, and filtering out inappropriate downloads can actually help you to gain back some precious network bandwidth.

These systems are very scalable, and licenses are frequently sold on a " per seat " basis or as an enterprise wide license. Costs vary, but can be as low as $15 per person annually. Most of the products mentioned below offer a free trial offer. I recommend you try multiple products to see which one best meets your needs.

One of the premier products in this category is Websense Enterprise, from Websense, which claims 244 of the Fortune 500 companies as clients. The heart of this tool is the Websense Master Database, which contains more than 2.4 million URLs of sites that you can choose to filter by at least 75 categories. This database is updated nightly to keep you current with the growth of the World Wide Web.

One of the first Web filtering tools to hit the market (way back in 1995) is SmartFilter from Secure Computing. One of the unique features this product offers is a delay for large downloads. For example, an employee may choose to download an MP3 music file. SmartFilter deliberately slows the rate of download, frustrating the user from continuing the process or from attempting it again.

With more than 3,500 client organizations around the world, Elron Software is a leading provider of " Internet policy management " tools. Elron provides us with IM Web Inspector, which is a Web filtering software, and IM Message Inspector, which allows you to filter and block unauthorized inbound, outbound and interoffice electronic communications (e-mail). Both products use content-based SmartList technology, which identifies suspect content based on actual text rather than a URL database.

Utilities giant Symantec weighs in with I-Gear, which uses Dynamic Document Review for real-time review of web documents on the fly, as well as URL filtering lists.

SuperScout Web Filter from SurfControl allows you to control streaming video by category. So, you can block adult content videos while allowing business-related materials in.

Take a test drive of one or more of these products today. Implementing one of them is bound to help you improve employee productivity, conserve network bandwidth, and mitigate your legal liabilities.