Internet Filtering

The Internet literally brings a world of information to the fingertips of organizations around the globe. And providing access has become as essential as the basic telephone. But it also brings new challenges for management. Policies concerning Internet access must be created and enforced.

An Internet filtering system allows an administrator to monitor and/or control Internet access. Monitoring Internet access means the administrator allows network users unrestricted access to the Internet, while producing aggregate and detailed usage reports.

Controlling Internet access means the administrator places restrictions on how the Internet is used within the organization. These restrictions could be the outright blocking of access to certain types of Internet sites, or the requirement of authentication, time of day controls or login access controls.

Websense is designed to promote professional use of the Internet by effectively monitoring and/or filtering access to Internet sites deemed undesirable in your environment. It is the ideal technology solution for businesses, schools, government agencies and other organizations concerned about:

	Defining and enforcing access privileges
	Ensuring productivity
	Protecting against potential legal action
	Preserving bandwidth and server space
	Managing Internet resources

Websense gives you the flexibility to fine-tune your Internet access policy. You can choose to monitor, block or screen (the combination of both). With Websense Internet filtering in place, you'll easily minimize unprofessional Internet use.

How Websense Works

Websense Enterprise integrates with your company's existing proxy servers, firewalls, cache engines or other Internet appliances, or operates as a stand-alone proxy server.

Websense filters Internet content by working in conjunction with the Websense Master Database of more than 2.2 million sites (comprising more than 400 million Web pages). This database is organized into 65+ categories, including MP3, gambling, shopping and adult content. You can choose to block or permit access to individual categories by user, group or time of day.

Websense consistently refines its Master Database of sites using artificial intelligence technology and Internet analysts. New sites are added to the database daily, and Websense automatically downloads updates to the database every night to ensure that you're keeping up with the rapid evolution of the Internet. Using Websense Reporter, you can then report on Internet usage within your organization.

Enterprise Filtering Engine

The core of Websense is the filtering engine. The filtering engine sees every Internet site that an end user attempts to contact and categorizes destination sites into one of 65+ different categories. The filtering engine will allow the connection to take place or block the connection depending on the following factors:

	Destination site belongs to a blocked category.
	Destination site belongs to a custom list of blocked sites.
	User is not authorized to access the Internet.
	Time of day or week restrictions.
	Password override.

The Database

All versions of Websense maintain a local copy of the Websense Master database which is used by the filtering engine to categorize web sites. The Master Database is a comprehensive list of over 2.2 million web sites in 65+ categories of potentially objectionable content. By default, Websense will automatically contact the Master Database site over the Internet and request the latest copy of the Websense Database every night between 1 AM and 5 AM.

The administrator selects which, if any, of these categories to block when configuring Websense. Administrators also have the option to add sites to the local copy of the  Websense Master Database or override individual sites already contained in the Database. Download frequency and time period can also be modified.