OZDISK PTY LTD

Utilising Internet filtering within a business site can be great for controlling access and minimising risks.

Just make sure that this doe not impact on normal business activities.

Over blocking access can lead to interuption and loss of business activities, Under blocking can also lead to the same.

So what do we do, for starters I have listed below some categories or sites that should be blocked.

Minimal
Pornography
Advertisements
Malware/Spyware/Virus Hosts

Additional
Social Sites
Messenging Sites
Violence

Using opensource systems like IPCOP, SMOOTHWALL or similar can be very benficial.
Install the software onto a computer, configure and install the system into you network.
Tune and tweak the proxy and any additional module you may have installed.

If you have access to Microsoft ISA server and some decent computer hardware, Install and configure.

After being contacted many times of the last year or two, I have put together the following.

I had been working in and around schools for many years. The number of children that attempt to access internet content that they should not can be overwhelming. Many technicians and teachers have enough to do without having to police the internet that chldren use.

Installing an internet filter and locking down external access is the only way to go. Children range from barely being able to use a computer right through to Year 12 students. This is a recipe for problems that any technician that has worked in a school can tell you.  Installing a proxy server that has some access controls is a start, making sure a firewall allows only the required external ports will reduce workload. Children will all ways try to bypass your proxy controls. Learn to deal with that.

Children are learning that internet filters can be bypassed by using internet hosted SSH, VPN and even PHP style hosting.

SSH – This method creates a secure tunnel in which they send and receive the data from a remote host that has un filtered access to the internet.

VPN – much the same as SSH, this creates a secure tunnel to a remote host that has unfiltered access to the internet.

PHP (Web) Proxy – This method is becoming very common, the end user sets up the required software on remote hosting where there is no internet filter and then using accesses that site, the url string is usually altered to cover there tracks. This method hides what they are accessing and only shows traffic to the orginal site.

Restrict access to VPN and monitor utilised ports, installing a firewall or ISA server can help you control this.

Blocking Malware, Spyware and known virus domains is another process that I recommend. Subscribing to a hosts file, malware blocklist and any other feed that will notify you of new sites, then collate this information together and deny access to those sites will decrease infections and reduce workload.

Bandwidth costs can accumulate very fast within schools, if a school has 100 computers that are used daily and download 10MB means 1000MB per day and thats going to end up using 20000MB approx. You need to cache whatever you can, I have seen some proxy servers cache 30-40% with some even higher. If you can tune your proxy server for high hit rates you will reduce your bandwidth bill.

CyBlock ISA / TMG: Advanced Web Filter for ISA Server and Forefront TMG

• Ideal for any size organization
• Customizable employee Web-use filtering and blocking
• Produces detailed and categorized Web-use reports
• Supports ISA 2006, 2004, Forefront TMG and Active Directory
• Provided by a long-time Microsoft ISA partner

http://www.wavecrest.net/isaserver/

Websense provides web filtering technology for Microsoft ISA server via Websense Web Filter

http://www.websense.com

Quote “The award-winning Websense Web Filter solutions have long been recognized in independent research studies and market share reports as the premier Web filtering solutions.”

Quote “we use a Censorblox which is updated daily at this point in time we have over 25,000 proxy servers blocked and counting. As soon as the kids find a new one it is added to the list.”
http://www.edulists.com.au/pipermail/sofdev/2007-August/000377.html