URL Filtering

URL Filtering

KNOW MORE ABOUT URL Filtering

What is URL Filtering

URL filtering technology helps organizations to prevent computer users from viewing inappropriate web sites or content, or to prevent access of known malware hosts.

The filter checks the origin or content of a Web page against a set of rules provided by company or person who has installed the URL filter. An URL filtering solution can be installed as a standalone solution, on a firewall or on a proxy server.

At the beginning, the technology was developed for productivity reasons. But, with the evolution of malware, the security takes the first place. More and more, malware attacks have moved from the e-mail based attacks to web based attacks.

Modern internet world is a dynamic one and what is good now, in 10 minutes can become a threat. Legitimate websites are compromised without any knowledge of the owner. A user thinks that is it safe to surf to his usual news website but doing this, can lead to malware infection. More advanced solutions use engines that analyze pages on the fly, to detect dangerous scripts or to allow the user to see only the good content on a webpage and block malicious content.

URL filtering companies are protected against compromised websites. User access to Internet content is logged and permitted or blocked based on policies. Reports can be generated and action can be taken based on the user’s web usage.

Minimize legal risk: there is also a legal liability issue when a user engages in illegal or inappropriate surfing activities. An URL filtering solution can effectively suppress offensive sites and can prevent download of inappropriate files and helps manage employee internet access and enforce usage policies to mitigate legal liability up front if an employee seeks to engage in improper behavior.

From the security point of view, an organization using URL filtering technology is able to minimize the costs related with virus outbreaks.

Resources planning: by understanding the web traffic generated a company, based on different reports, an organization can foreseen the real need of bandwidth and can save costs just because it will utilize the exact resources necessary to perform business processes and not spend money to buy additional bandwidth.

Boost productivity: URL Filter can reduce the use of bandwidth-intensive files, such as streaming media. This can significantly improve the performance of your business applications while optimizing the use of network resources. This can be done by eliminating recreational and non business traffic and allow business traffic to have more resources.