Author Archives: admin

Set Your Block Policies For Newly Released Categories

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The new categories released and updated in your product on April 3 are set to “Allow” by default (for all CyBlock products).  This means that you will need to review these new categories and set your policy to “Block” those categories for which you want to restrict access.  Set your block policies at the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Categories screen.

For reporting and monitoring purposes, you may also want to change the new category’s classification statuses at the Advanced Settings – Category Setup – Classification screen to match your organization’s Acceptable Use Policy.

See the Category Update Data Sheet for a full list of categories and their descriptions.

Enforce Safe Search in Google, Yahoo and Bing with CyBlock

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If you haven’t already done so, check out the safe search feature in your CyBlock Proxy, CyBlock Appliance or CyBlock ISA product. With this feature, you can force Google, Yahoo and Bing to strictly use Safe Search. To enable it, go to the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Safe Search screen, check the enable box and hit Submit. When enabled, the product will reset search engines to “safe search” even if users change the preference in the search engine. This will block Web pages containing explicit sexual content from appearing in search results.

Note: Safe Search is available only in Versions 6.0.0 and later.

New Categories Coming April 3!

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New categories and category changes will automatically be updated in your product on April 3, 2010 for CyBlock Versions 6.0.0 and later or Cyfin Versions 8.0.0 and later.  If you do not have these versions of the product, you will need to upgrade to the most current version in order to get the new categories and category changes.

For CyBlock, these categories will be allowed by default. Therefore, you will need to go to your Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Categories screen and alter your policies.  For reporting and monitoring purposes, you may also want to change the new category’s classification statuses at the Advanced Settings – Category Setup – Classification screen to match your organization’s Acceptable Use Policy.

See the Category Update Data Sheet for a full list of categories and their descriptions.

Check Your Product News to Get the Latest Updates

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You may notice that the icon below occasionally shows up in the right-hand corner of the browser interface indicating that you have new product news.

This icon will stay in the upper right-hand corner of the browser interface until you click on it to read your product news.

We send product news to let you know general and critical information about your product.  Product news items provide you with information on new releases, category changes, updates and more so be sure to check your news when the icon appears.

When viewing a news item, you will notice at the top that we indicate whether or not the news is critical or non-critical.  Critical news is identified with a red bar, meaning that it is very important that you read the message and may require some action, while non-critical news is identified with a green bar.

March Madness, Again

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It’s baaaacccccckkkkkk! Happens every year. March Madness, that is. Everybody loves it. (Well, almost everybody.)

The excitement! The fun! The astounding fast breaks, slam dunks and three-pointers! And oh yes, watching it all unfold on your office computer.

Who could not like it? Well, for openers, the overworked folks who have to worry about workforce productivity, bandwidth costs, security issues and legal risks.

Here’s just one of many worrisome predictions, “FIRST WEEK OF TOURNEY COULD COST $1.8 BILLION.” It comes from the Challenger March Madness Report. The report also states, “The men’s college basketball tournament, better known as March Madness, marks the arrival of several other annual rituals: employee-organized office pools, a potential dip in productivity and a marked decline in Internet speed, as workers soak up bandwidth watching live streaming broadcasts of the tournament games during office hours.”

Not exactly good news for businesses and government agencies during this time of troublesome economic conditions and serious budget worries.

Maybe it’s time to revisit your AUP and rebrief your workers on the negative impact their fun could have on the organization and ultimately on their own job security. And if your organization doesn’t already have a robust Internet usage management solution in place, it may just be time to look into it seriously.

Wavecrest’s Control List includes CBSSports.com and NCAA.com under the Sports category, and for those using Cyfin, access to these sites will be monitored under Sports. If you want to only block and/or monitor the live video, you can create a custom category to block and/or monitor www.ncaasports.com/mmod/player.

How Much Personal Internet Surfing in the Workplace is Too Much?

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It depends on what your organization considers “acceptable.” Research shows that the average person spends around one hour per day on non-work related internet surfing.   It also shows that the majority of viruses enter via Internet surfing.

Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products are configurable to fit your organization’s acceptable use policy. You can set acceptability ratings and visit thresholds to each category.  To set acceptability ratings, go to the Advanced Settings – Category Settings – Classification screen in your product.

With CyBlock you can select to “block” or “allow” each category and configure blocking by hour on the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Categories screen.  You can also configure real-time filtering with our deep packet analysis for content types and file extensions on the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Content screen in your CyBlock product.

Read more about personal surfing in the workplace on Business Blogs.

New CyBlock and Cyfin Upgrades

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Check out the latest releases for CyBlock Proxy, CyBlock Appliance, Cyfin Reporter, and Cyfin Proxy!  These are packed with tons of great new features that we’re sure you will love.  The new features include:

  • A New Browser Interface with new colors and wider screens.
  • A Dashboard that includes:
    • A Home screen that provides an overview of the organization’s Web use for the last 7 days by displaying charts of Web-use visits, top users, top categories and bandwidth usage.
    • Top charts and trend charts with customizable parameters to view Web usage data by hits, visits or bytes, select the timeframe and compare users Web usage to the group average or enterprise average.
  • More Custom Categories.
  • Enhanced Data Warehousing that includes support for MySQL and SQL server.
  • Full 64-bit support on Windows and Linux systems.
  • Safe Search option to enforce safe search on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Use the following links to access the full release notes for your Wavecrest product.

If you have any questions about any of the new features or upgrading, please contact Support.

Email: support@wavecrest.net
Phone (Toll-free): 877-442-9346, ext. 4 (U.S. and Canada)
Phone (Direct): 321-953-535, ext. 4

New Categories Coming Soon!

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New categories are coming soon to all Wavecrest Products.  Some of the new categories include:

  • TV/Video Streaming
  • Shareware/Freeware
  • Online Meetings
  • P2P/File Sharing
  • Weapons
  • Online Storage

Keep an eye out on your product’s news, the Web site, Blog and Twitter for updates with more details on the new categories and when you can expect to see them in your CyBlock or Cyfin product.

Blocking IM/Chat with Wavecrest’s CyBlock Products

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Our CyBlock Appliance offers the best coverage for blocking IM and Chat sites. The CyBlock Appliance can block the IM traffic as well as the sites to prevent the user from making a connection to the IM server.  To block IM with the CyBlock Appliance, first go to the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Protocols screen and check all the IM clients that you want to block.  Next, go to the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Categories screen and block the Chat category.  For even more coverage, you can also block the following URLs by placing them in a Custom Category or by adding them to the Chat category.

Yahoo IM: login.yahoo.com (Hardware and Software)

AOL IM: login.oscar.aol.com (Other Category)

MSN Messenger: login.live.com (Note: This site also is used for Hotmail login as well. So if you block the Hardware and Software category or this URL, you will block both MSN Messenger and Hotmail email).

To get the best filtering Chat/IM coverage with CyBlock Proxy or CyBlock ISA, block the Chat category and the sites listed above.

Few Employers Have a Social Networking Policy in Place

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A recent report by Manpower found that very few companies have policies regarding social networking use.  In fact, only 29% of US companies have a formal social networking policy in place.  Social networks are not only time wasters, but they can pose serious security risks or damage a company’s reputation if employees post confidential or harmful material about the company.  No matter what an employer’s stance is on social networking use in the workplace, it is highly recommended to have a policy in place and educate employees on that policy. Joseph P. Paranac, a shareholder in LeClairRyan’s Labor and Employment Group has offered Web-use policy suggestions on what companies should include.

If you’re unsure whether or not you want to block social networking, we have also written a paper that addresses the issues surrounding social networking use in the workplace, the importance of creating a policy, and monitoring or filtering employee’s Web use according to that policy.

White Paper: Social Networking or Social Not-working?

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007493