Advanced Web Protection:
World Class Web filtering available now.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a hardware appliance that I felt would revolutionize the elimination of SPAM email. For Hagerman & Company, the Barracuda Spam Firewall did just that. In the two years since it has been in place, the device has successfully filtered more than 90 percent of SPAM from reaching our mailboxes, virus / malware / worm infected email has been stopped in its tracks and all with very low (less than .5% false positives at the onset and even less today with the smart learning technology of the device). So even though SPAM is a problem, our biggest problem today was web traffic. There are just too many sites that have infection from viruses’ and worms, errant code, bots and redirection that puts the machines in our enterprise at risk of infection and the company at liability. The task I set out on was to find a way to do for our web traffic what the Barracuda had done for SPAM control. But where to look? I checked my technical publications looking for a suggestion or a trend. The Gartner group was saying that “The Internet and Internet applications have become the primary source of malware infections in the enterprise... yet less than 15 percent of organizations have secured their internet gateway from these threats.” Even though I knew it was happening, seeing it in print was surprise, but knowing we were not alone in having the problem provided little comfort.

What Are The Choices?
The challenge I had was a big one: Implement a solution that would allow us to control access to infected sites, effectively blocking them and to operate from a central location. There are many products that can do site filtering at some level from the desktop, but administration is complex when dealing with hundreds of machines across a nationwide enterprise and these solutions are really not designed for the enterprise environment. Service based solutions are available too from big name companies, but in many cases, the desktop and service solutions add a client that put an additional load on already burdened individual systems. No, what I needed was a hardware appliance solution, a product that I could put inline in my infrastructure that would act as a gate, swinging open to allowing safe, business related traffic and swinging closed to block the threats. Does such a product even exist?

Webgate from Mi5 Networks
It turns out that the Webgate from Mi5 was exactly what I was looking for, and more! And it had a perfect name for what it does, acting as a gate to allow and restrict web traffic. Mi5 Networks recognized that simple URL filtering solutions like we were using and like so many home computer solutions used did provide some protection for users but they simply do not do enough. Those solutions can’t inspect files and traffic across all ports & protocols without noticeably slowing down the user’s browsing experience.Mi5’s award-winning Webgate allows enterprises to defend their web perimeter using URL Filtering, web anti-malware detection, application control and more on a single, high performance platform. I was like a kid in a candy shop! This all seemed too good to be true! The marketing literature showed that the Mi5 Webgate was built on a real-time inspection engine that scans traffic on-the-fly, without the slowdown associated with proxy-based architectures. In addition to this real-time engine, the Webgate adds multi-layer defenses including QuickScan™, DeepScan™ and MultiScan™ technologies –in order to block inappropriate or malicious websites, active content, applications (IM, P2P, etc.),file downloads, “phone home” traffic, and attacks. They had my attention! I had to get my hands on one of these for a trial in my enterprise and see if it was true. The implications for increased productivity and PC reliability notwithstanding, I was intrigued with what I had found out about this device.

What are the specifics?
The Webgate from Mi5 Networks brings a lot to the table. Mi5 Webgate offered some industry firsts and capabilities I saw in no other product offering. These include: