Category Archives: CyBlock

New Categories Coming April 3!

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

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

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?

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 Categories Coming Soon!

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.

Wavecrest’s RealTimePlus Filtering

RealTimePlus is our customer-configurable three-layer filtering process. It uses three layers of screening based on: (1) custom categories, (2) the Wavecrest categorization (control) list and (3) a real-time deep packet analysis process.

1. Custom Categories (the “First Layer”). ‘Custom categories’ supplement the standard categories. This enables you to better identify and control your users’ Web activity.   For example, you can create a custom category to:

  • Serve as a “white list” that contains all sites to which visits are allowed (while blocking all others).
  • Track and possibly block access to ‘standard’ sites that are not in the Wavecrest URL List but are of special local interest or concern.
  • Serve as a “black list” that contains all sites to be blocked (while allowing access to all others).
  • Track (but not block) visits to internal servers (intranet sites) and/or partner sites.

You can add custom categories at the Advanced Settings – Category Setup – Custom Categories screen. Then use the Advanced Settings – Category Setup – Edit URLs screen to add sites into your custom categories.

2. The Wavecrest URL List (the “Second Layer”). To accurately identify and categorize the vast majority of visits, Wavecrest products use a large, mature categorization control list.  This ‘control’ list consists of 69 ‘standard’ content-identification categories that is updated daily with URLs from around the world.  We recommend that you download the list daily to get the best filtering and monitoring coverage.   You can setup an automatic daily download of the list at the Administration – URL List – Schedule screen.

Another great customization feature with the control list is that you can add and move URLs in the standard categories.  For example, if you use Twitter as a Marketing tool but want to continue to block all other social networking sites, you can simply add www.twitter.com to the Marketing category.  You can make this change at the Advanced Settings – Category Setup – Edit URLs screen.

Finally, set your block/allow policies for your custom categories and standard categories at the Advanced Settings – Filtering Settings – Block Web Categories screen.

3. Deep Packet Analysis (the “Third Layer”). Using real-time ‘deep packet analysis,’ CyBlock can determine if the content of a URL is Flash, video streaming, audio streaming, images, Active X and more.  Any or all of these could be considered “inappropriate” and can be blocked.  You can also add your own extensions to be blocked.  You can block these types of content or add your own at the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Block Web Content screen.

Other Features

1. Hourly Blocking. You can block or allow categories at specific hours during the day.  For example, you may want to allow access to some categories during the lunch hour. You can set these hourly policies by clicking on the clock icon at the Block Web Categories screen.

2. Customizable Blocking Message. CyBlock comes with a standard blocking message, but you can configure the product to point to your own Web policy or personalized blocking message.  You can set this custom message at the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings – Web Blocking Message screen.

Wavecrest Computing’s End of Year Sales Specials

Now is your last chance to take advantage of one of our sales specials on our CyBlock Internet filtering or Cyfin Internet monitoring software. These specials will end on December 31, 2009, so act fast!

Purchase a one-year license and get one extra month free! That’s a 13-month license for the price of 12!

Interested in a multi-year license?
No problem. For purchasing a 2-year license, you’ll get 2 extra months, or get 3 extra months with the purchase of a 3-year license.

New to Wavecrest?
Enjoy the following discounts when you purchase a NEW 2 or 3-year license:

  • 20% off a new 2-year license
  • 30% off a new 3-year license

Coming Up For Renewal?
In addition to getting the extra months, if you purchase a multi-year renewal license, you’ll also get to enjoy the following discounts:

  • 15% off a 2-year license
  • 20% off a 3-year license

To take advantage of these specials, simply state that you would like the “End of Year Sales Special” when you order!

For a quote or to place your order, contact sales.

Phone (Toll-free): 877-442-9346, ext. 3 (U.S. and Canada)
Phone: 321-953-5351, ext. 3
Email: sales@wavecrest.net

Online Holiday Shopping: Here We Go Again

It’s that time of year again! The big Christmas shopping spree. As in previous years, the online version ‘officially’ starts on Cyber Monday – the day after the big T-Day weekend. And now this year we’ve got Green Monday (December 7) and Brown Monday (December 14). These are days on which, like Cyber Monday, online retailers put on a full court press to draw in ‘surfer-shoppers.’

And the whole circus runs through New Year’s Day.

The volume can be huge and problematical for employers. A survey conducted for ISACA, an association of 86,000 information technology professionals, states in part:

“Employees plan to spend nearly two full working days (14.4 hours) on average shopping online from a work computer this holiday season. One in 10 plans to spend more than 30 hours shopping online at work. Convenience (34%) and boredom (23%) are the biggest motivators.”

“… the second annual “Shopping on the Job: Online Holiday Shopping and Workplace Internet Safety” survey found that half of those surveyed plan to holiday shop online using a work computer.

“Dangers of shopping online include viruses, spam and phishing attacks that invade the workplace, resulting in financial losses due to reduced productivity and destruction or compromise of corporate data.”

In addition to generating network security and performance issues, online holiday shopping is a huge productivity waster for businesses. When workers are shopping, they’re not ‘minding the store.’ Accordingly, this is a good time for all types of organizations to take stock of their Web-use management practices and seek help if needed.

Wavecrest Computing is ready to provide that help.

Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products and services help all types of organizations manage and control inappropriate and risky personal surfing of all kinds, including shopping. Cyfin and CyBlock products do this by monitoring and/or filtering employees’ Web use and reporting on the activity by content categories, e.g., shopping, sports, games, and others. Of particular note, with regard to holiday shopping, CyBlock products can be set up to block Web access by categories and by hour so employees can access shopping sites on their lunch break or after hours. This approach can help sustain morale while minimizing the risks associated with online shopping.

For 13 years, Wavecrest Computing has been providing Internet filtering and monitoring solutions to business, government, and educational organizations worldwide.  Wavecrest’s customer base includes well-known names such as the HP, Procter and Gamble, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Bridgestone, Mazda and many others.

Managing Groups and IDs in CyBlock and Cyfin

There are two options for managing your Groups and IDs in Cyfin or CyBlock.  You can manage them either “Inside the Product” or “Outside the Product.”

By choosing to manage your Groups and IDs “Inside the Product,”  it means exactly that.  You can manually add, delete and move Groups and IDs in the product.  If you import your Groups and IDs from Active Directory or a text file, each time your Groups and IDs are imported either manually or scheduled, only NEW Groups and IDs will import.  The new Groups and IDs that are imported will be based on your configuration setup in the Active Directory Setup wizard.  Your existing Groups and IDs will not be modified, which means if a user left or moved departments, he/she will have to be deleted or moved in the product.  If you want to have users in the VIP group, you must use the “Inside the Product” option.

If you select to manage your Groups and IDs “Outside the Product,” then you will be only managing and making changes to your Groups and IDs at the directory source.  Each time Groups and IDs are imported, whether manually or scheduled from Active Directory or a text file, all Groups and IDs will be updated to identically match that configuration. Typically this option is not used because the directory source is grouped according to your network setup and not according to how you will want to apply Web-use policies.

New Advanced Reporting Options

New advanced reporting options were recently added to Cyfin and CyBlock. You can configure these options by going to Advanced Settings – Report Settings in your Cyfin or CyBlock product and clicking on the Advanced Options link. The new options include the following:

  • Check For New Logfiles. Before running a report, the product will check for any new logfiles. This option is selected by default.
  • Compress Reports For Email. This compresses the report attachment for read-only reports in an email as a .zip file.
  • Display Login Name and IP Address. Select this option if you want to see both the login name and IP address for each record in the report.
  • Include All Group´s Users. This will display a user ID even if there is no data for that ID in a User Audit Detail or Category Audit Detail report.

If you have any questions about these settings, contact technical support by phone at 321-953-5351, ext. 4 or by email at support@wavecrest.net.