If you search for "breast cancer awareness," you shouldn't get a lot of pornographic URLs. However, if your filtering system can't look at context as well as words, that could happen. When pornographic texts are screened, the focus may only be on the word "breast" and not on how it is used in the text. It is important that the Appropriate Use Policy (AUP) of your company spells out exactly what kinds of websites need to be blocked. Most company AUPs would probably let you go to the Breast Cancer Society's home page. But it can be hard to make sure that only the right sites get through and the wrong ones get blocked, especially if your filtering solution only looks at words and not the context.
The option to filter with hardware
Implementing a hardware filtering solution that can handle both words and context is one way to make sure that your AUP is correctly enforced. Also, an appliance has other benefits that make it the best choice for complex filtering tasks that need to be done quickly, accurately, and in a flexible way.
One benefit of an appliance-based filtering solution is that it fits easily into your network's structure and gives your business the flexibility of great features. A dedicated hardware appliance has a pass-by architecture that lets it stay stable no matter how much work it has to do.
If the workload goes up, you can just add another machine to the hardware appliance. Software filters are limited in how well they work, how much they can grow, and where they can fail.
Reports that tell the whole story
The ability to make useful reports is one of the most important parts of successful Web filtering for any organisation. You can get a quick look at what's going on at your organisation or make the management or compliance reports it needs. There is no better way to make sure that goals for accuracy and dependability are met. If you can find a Web filtering appliance that gives you reports right on the box, you've found the best product. With total on-box reporting, you won't have to spend more money on extra hardware or software. You will also be able to show that inappropriate content isn't getting to your employees and that only appropriate content is. Also, reporting lets you meet the requirements of your company's Acceptable Use and Security Policies and provide proof that you did so.
Human Review: Why It's Important
For secure and up-to-date content filtering, the URL database must be updated automatically. It's especially important that these database updates go through more than just a name check. By using 100% human review and weekly, daily, or hourly updates, your company is protected around the clock from dangerous sites and offensive content. With human-review, sites with content that might be questionable are checked every day and added to the database. On the other hand, if a site like the Breast Cancer Society or a site about fertility treatments needs to be reviewed, the content can be approved by a human interface.
Medical mistakes and running a business.
Filtering Web content in a safe and accurate way is important for many different organisations. In the case of medical facilities, it's important to know that the HIPPA policy now controls hospitals and doctors' offices. This policy says that private medical information can't be given to anyone who isn't specifically named by the patient. If a medical facility's internal or network security was broken, it would be in violation of HIPPA and could be fined a lot and lose the trust of its patients.
Pornography, phishing, spy ware, violent, or racist websites may use the same words as good websites, but they are bad and can hurt a company's reputation and network security. By using appliance-based Web filtering solutions, businesses can put in place the tools and resources they need to protect their best interests, no matter what kind of business they run. Software solutions have limitations that come with them, especially when a firewall is involved. When a software solution is used with a firewall, the firewall's general-purpose CPU will eventually slow down because it will have to do two jobs. In the worst case, the software filter and the firewall device slow down the network, which hurts performance and makes the network less safe.
Cyberspace can be dangerous, but it shouldn't be unfair and hard to understand. Software-based solutions, which are more complicated by nature and use heuristics instead of 100% human review, can only do so much. To be successful, there needs to be a human interface so that content can be judged based on its context. The best solution for network security is one that is focused on giving your organisation the best service possible so that it can meet its needs and be happy.
Even though losing intellectual property and getting sued in front of a lot of people is a risk in cyberspace, a hardware filtering solution keeps the risks out and protects access to important content.
