Tag Archives: safe search

Really? Is it really time to think about holiday shopping? Already?!

Manage Holiday Web Usage with CyBlock

Yes–now is the time. The holidays are right around the corner and definitely require attention now so your business can prepare for the increase in Web usage and the associated risks. There are many reasons for your business to pay close attention to Internet activity at this time of year (and all year). But there is one primary focus that could easily help with all the cyber risks to your business–managing the natural human vulnerability that cyber thieves take advantage of.

Did you know that most breaches are initially caused by employee error? “Ninety-two percent of all incidents are, and 84 percent of all data breaches were, unintentional or inadvertent in nature,” states an article from iapp.org. No matter what kind of data loss or breach it is, human error likely played a very important role.

Shopping season can bring out even more human vulnerabilities than usual. Malicious Web sites can look real and carry what looks like legitimate product offerings, advertising can be more enticing with hard-to-resist discounts, and e-mails can come from legitimate e-mail addresses hacked by these talented criminals. Humans’ emotional nature can make it hard to resist when we are all looking for that special or hard-to-get gift. It is important to make sure your business–and your employees–are protected by an easy-to-setup solution that is comprehensive and proactive.

This is easier than you think. Access to a comprehensive Web management solution will allow you to manage usage in a way that suits your unique business philosophy. This includes whether you want to allow or restrict access to certain Web sites at a particular time of day, monitor usage with reporting features by analyzing trends and tracking usage, or just meet compliance and regulation requirements.

This time of year, it is important to spend some extra time paying attention to your organization’s Web use. But Web-use management should be part of your business process and security all year round. Find a solution that is flexible enough to grow or change with you throughout the year, and for this time of year … let them shop … and know you are still being proactive and secure.

Cyfin® provides advanced User Behavior Analytics and Reporting for a wide variety of gateway devices and log file formats. Comprehensive yet easy to use, its customized reporting capabilities supply audience-specific information with reliable metrics, easy-to-read reporting dashboards, manager-ready detailed audit reports, and Smart Engine analytics. Cyfin is available in various deployment options: Cyfin Virtual Appliance and Cyfin Forensic.

CyBlock® Employee Web Filtering and Monitoring Solutions provide advanced Web filtering, threat protection, comprehensive employee reporting, Smart Engine analytics, easy-to-use admin and manager portals, and more. Customers can easily configure CyBlock to monitor and manage compliance with their usage policies. CyBlock is available in various deployment options: CyBlock Virtual Appliance, CyBlock Cloud, and CyBlock Hybrid.

Wavecrest has over 25 years of proven history of providing reliable, accurate Web-use management and Advanced Log File Analyzer products across various industries. IT specialists, business managers, HR professionals, Managed Service Providers, and Forensics Investigators trust Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products to easily decipher and manage, and report on, real employee Web activity, manage cloud services, reduce liability risks, improve productivity, save bandwidth, and control costs. Trusted by small, medium, and large government and commercial organizations worldwide. For more information on the company, products, and partners, visit Wavecrest.

Remote Working & Managing Internet Use

Specifically built to serve remote and roaming users, CyBlock Cloud will follow your users to wherever they are working.
Specifically built to serve remote and roaming users, CyBlock Cloud will follow your users to wherever they are working.

We all hope this coronavirus doesn’t last long. That’s clear. But because of this, companies seem to be realizing that social distancing is a good idea, and they can have people working remotely in a positive way. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft – the list keeps growing. They are taking this head-on and moving their employees off-site, potentially protecting their entire workforce from an onsite health crisis.

How does remote working fit into work overall? The numbers that come out of all this should be interesting, especially the numbers for the companies that finally realize they can operate this way and not lose any control over Internet security, productivity, liability, and more. Buzzfeed reports in its March 4th article*, “some in the industry are looking at the outbreak as a test case for the long-gestating but never-arriving moment when working remotely will broadly replace working in person.”

Many businesses have traveling workers. Salespeople, Technical Support staff, and others, but now we are looking at the driving force being something out of our control. The businesses that have made this decision are supporting a healthy workforce as a whole. Businesses that do choose to do this also know that they are still responsible for employees’ online activity. So how does a company support its business when its workforce is scattered everywhere?

The answer is a comprehensive Internet use management solution with an easy, flexible cloud deployment that travels with your employees. So, for example, the employee goes home with a company laptop, the company Internet use would be managed by the cloud solution.

What should you look for when looking at Internet-use cloud solutions?

  • Should deploy in minutes with simple, intuitive steps.
  • Follows users with perimeter-less coverage.
  • Is an easily scalable, highly elastic, and adaptable solution.
  • Always-on filtering with User/Group filter policies. 
  • Provides fast, efficient, manager-ready reporting.
  • Has no hardware installation and no maintenance.

CyBlock Cloud can provide all this and more. Specifically built to serve remote and roaming users, CyBlock Cloud will follow your users to wherever they are working.

Now is the best time to be prepared. Our Sales Team and Technical Staff are ready to help you get setup and going. We are all in this together! Contact us today at info@wavecrest.net.

About Us

CyBlock® Employee Web Filtering and Monitoring Solutions provide advanced Web filtering, threat protection, comprehensive employee reporting, Smart Engine with machine-learning analytics, easy-to-use admin and manager portals, and more. Customers can easily configure CyBlock to monitor and manage compliance with their usage policies. CyBlock is available in various deployment options: CyBlock Virtual Appliance, CyBlock Appliance, CyBlock Mini Appliance, CyBlock Cloud, and CyBlock Hybrid.

Cyfin® provides advanced employee Web-use analysis and reporting for a wide variety of gateway devices and log file formats. Comprehensive yet easy to use, its customizable reporting and machine-learning analytics supply audience-specific Web-use information with reliable metrics, easy-to-read reporting dashboards, manager-ready detailed audit reports, and Smart Engine analytics. Cyfin is available in various deployment options: Cyfin Virtual Appliance and Cyfin Forensic.

Wavecrest® has over 20 years of proven history of providing reliable, accurate Web-use management, filtering, reporting, and analytics products across various industries. IT specialists, business managers, HR professionals, Managed Service Providers, and Forensics Investigators trust Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products to easily decipher and manage real employee Web activity, manage cloud services, reduce liability risks, improve productivity, save bandwidth, and control costs. Trusted by large government and commercial organizations such as US-CERT Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Justice, USPS Office of Inspector General, National Grid, Johns Hopkins, and a growing list of global enterprises and government agencies. We are a proud long-term GSA contract holder. For more information on the company, products, and partners, visit Wavecrest.

*The Coronavirus Is Forcing Techies To Work From Home. Some May Never Go Back The Office, buzzfeed.com, March 2020.

Small can still be powerful!

CyBlock Mini Appliance – Compact yet Robust!

Don’t be fooled by the name–CyBlock Mini Appliance is powerful, comprehensive, and worth every inch of its compactness. Built for managing your business’ employee Internet access in the most convenient, budget-friendly way possible!

Maintaining visibility throughout your workforce is key to running a secure business today. Don’t settle on just any Web-use management solution that really doesn’t meet your needs. If you need coverage for a remote office, have limited space either in your server room or in your office, or are struggling with how to keep your business Internet access secure with a limited IT budget, Wavecrest has more choices than ever. No matter what business size or industry type, CyBlock Mini Appliance is likely to be just what you have been looking for.

The powerful Mini Appliance provides the comprehensive Web-use management capabilities of CyBlock, including URL filtering, comprehensive detailed reporting, secure guest Wi-Fi services with captive portal, advanced threat protection, bandwidth management, cloud services management, as well as coverage for non-HTTP activity, e.g., P2P, torrents, IM, and e-mail. Get all of this in one compact and economical package. The general size of a Wi-Fi hub, the Mini allows you to put it in the corner, on your desk, or in that tiny space you have left in your packed server room!

As a cost-effective choice for any business type or size, the robust, yet compact Mini Appliance provides the leading-edge, comprehensive Web-use filtering, reporting, and security capabilities of CyBlock. Designed to fit every business environment, the Mini Appliance can be paired with CyBlock Appliance or deployed on its own, depending on the required Web-use needs.

For more information on CyBlock Mini Appliance or any of our other products, please contact us today!

About Wavecrest ComputingFor over 20 years Wavecrest Computing, headquartered in historic downtown Melbourne, FL, has been providing commercial business and government clients with reliable, accurate Web-use management, monitoring, and analytics products. Managed Service Providers, IT specialists, HR professionals, and business managers trust Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products to monitor and manage employee Internet usage — managing cloud services, reducing liability risks, improving productivity, saving bandwidth, and controlling costs. Wavecrest has clients worldwide, including General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Florida Department of Health, Siemens, Department of Homeland Security, and a growing list of global enterprises and government agencies. We are a proud long-term GSA contract holder. For more information on the company, products, and partners, visit https://www.wavecrest.net.

It is holiday shopping time again! Cyber Monday is now more like Cyber Month!

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we all know what is coming–Cyber Monday–the big day (now it is more like a month!) for personal employee Web use! More than ever before, businesses are open to employee use of the company Internet for personal use such as snagging some holiday deals. But what does this really mean for daily business operations? That depends.

There are definitely cyber risks associated with the season of shopping–malicious ads, phishing e-mails with malicious Web links, and slow bandwidth, to name a few. Paying attention to your employees’ Web usage is crucial. It is up to you whether you allow shopping on your network. If you do, there are steps you should take to manage this naturally vulnerable human endpoint.

  • Filter
    • Filtering allows you to reduce risks from malicious URLs in ads, phishing, etc. . . . employees are your weakest link. Train them continuously but also make sure there is a Web filtering solution in place to allow you to manage the Web use the way you see fit.
  • Manage Bandwidth Usage
    • This time of year employees may be doing things such as watching a video review of the latest in tech toys for their kids. Make sure your mission-critical operations are not affected. Configuring bandwidth limits by user-defined thresholds and setting trigger alerts will help you make sure you don’t have unnecessary bandwidth hogs slowing your business down.
  • Monitor Web use
    • Visibility means everything. With the right monitoring solution, you can easily analyze employee Web-usage trends, make sure your Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is being followed, and get actionable, relevant detail when you need it.

These are only a few of the things that you can do to help reduce the risks associated with employee Web use all year long. Remember that human vulnerabilities are a leading cause of most network breaches. Focus on the human endpoint. Take the time to keep training employees, enforcing your AUP, monitoring, analyzing, and filtering.

At this time of year, you can feel good about allowing your employees some freedom to research or snag some holiday gift deals. Have a comprehensive employee Web filtering and monitoring solution in place, and enjoy your holidays even more knowing you are proactively managing employee Web activity!

About Wavecrest

Wavecrest has over 20 years of proven history of providing reliable, accurate Web-use management and Advanced Log File Analyzer products across various industries. Managed Service Providers, IT specialists, HR professionals, Forensics Investigators, and business managers trust Wavecrest’s Cyfin and CyBlock products to manage the human factor in business Internet usage — managing cloud services, reducing liability risks, improving productivity, saving bandwidth, and controlling costs. Trusted by large government and commercial organizations such as US-CERT Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Justice, USPS Office of Inspector General, National Grid, Johns Hopkins, and a growing list of global enterprises and government agencies. We are a proud long-term GSA contract holder. For more information on the company, products, and partners, visit https://www.wavecrest.net.

CyBlock/Cyfin Release 9.2.0.a Now Available

We recently released a new version of CyBlock and Cyfin. This release contains the following corrections:

CyBlock

  • Using Application Controls, allowed YouTube videos now load properly with secure YouTube connections.
  • When Safe Search and SSL Inspection are enabled, adult content is now properly blocked in Bing search results.

CyBlock and Cyfin

  • The Compress Reports for E-Mail report option now works when only one report is e-mailed.
  • On the Data Management – Report Database – Delete – Schedule screen, the correct message is displayed when the Enable option is selected.
  • Logon accounts are no longer limited to five accounts.

To see the full release notes for your product, visit our Web site or knowledge base.

If you are at version 9.0.5 or later, you can upgrade to the latest release by going to the Help – Check for Updates screen in your product.

If you are at version 6.8.3.a or earlier, you can download the latest release by going to CyBlock Software Downloads or Cyfin Downloads. To upgrade CyBlock Appliance, please contact Technical Support at (321) 953-5351, Ext. 4 or support@wavecrest.net.

For additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

CyBlock/Cyfin Release 9.2.0 Now Available

In Release 9.2.0, we are thrilled to announce the availability of reporting for your CyBlock Hybrid deployment. With this feature, you can monitor live Web traffic, run reports, and view Dashboard charts on your cloud users. Another CyBlock feature in this release is the ability to use Safe Search with YouTube to block adult content.

For Cyfin customers, log file detection is available to assist you in quickly creating a log file configuration. Cyfin will analyze your log files to determine the log file format for you. The enhancements are described below.

  • CyBlock Hybrid Reporting. The following features have been added:
    • When your local CyBlock installation is paired with your CyBlock Cloud account, the following occurs:
      • Cloud log files are imported nightly into the Report Database similar to your local logs.
      • Cloud log files are compressed when transferred.
      • A data configuration field is displayed on the following pages to allow you to view your cloud configuration, local CyBlock configuration, or all configurations if applicable.
        • Data Management – Log Data Source – Viewer
        • Data Management – Log Data Source – Revalidate
        • Data Management – Report Database – Import – Manual
        • Data Management – Report Database – Viewer
        • Data Management – Report Database – Delete – Manual
        • Real-Time Monitors – Web
        • Reports – Manager (all reports)
        • Reports – Dashboard (excluding Top Classifications, Top Coached, and Trend Classifications)
      • The cloud configuration is displayed as the pairing cloud server to which your local installation is connected, for example, cloud.cyblock.com.
    • Real-Time Web Monitor. The Real-Time Web Monitor displays the Web traffic of your cloud users. Messages are displayed if sync communication is temporarily stopped, your CyBlock installation and cloud account are unpaired, or the pairing cloud server is down for some reason.
    • Reports. Reports can be run to analyze the Web usage of your cloud users. Cloud reports are current as of the previous day. To get a report with the current day’s cloud data, you would need to perform a manual sync on the Settings – Hybrid screen, and then run the report. You can verify that cloud logs have been transferred by going to the Data Management – Log Data Source – Viewer screen.
    • Dashboard Charts. Dashboard charts show cloud Web activity for the top users, groups, categories, and sites, and provide trending for users, groups, categories, and denied and allowed traffic.
  • CyBlock Safe Search for YouTube. The ability to enable Safe Search for YouTube has been added. When Safe Search and SSL Inspection are enabled, adult content is blocked on YouTube regardless of its Restricted Mode setting.
  • Cyfin Log File Detection. The following features have been added:
    • On the Log Data Source Setup page, you have the option to manually select your log file type or have the system analyze your log files to detect the type.
    • If you choose “Analyze,” you can browse to locate a log file, and the analysis will display the closest matching log file types.
    • You can then select the log file type that is the closest match and continue the configuration process.
    • If no matching log file types are found, a link is displayed so that you can upload a sample log file to Technical Support for analysis.

There are also corrections in this release for CyBlock as well as Cyfin. To see the full release notes for your product, visit our Web site or knowledge base.

If you are at version 9.0.5 or later, you can upgrade to the latest release by going to the Help – Check for Updates screen in your product.

If you are at version 6.8.3.a or earlier, you can download the latest release by going to CyBlock Software Downloads or Cyfin Downloads. To upgrade CyBlock Appliance, please contact Technical Support at (321) 953-5351, Ext. 4 or support@wavecrest.net.

For additional assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Using Safe Search With Secure Sites

With our CyBlock Safe Search feature enabled, you can force the Bing, Google, and Yahoo! search engines to use the “strict” Safe Search setting on search result pages. This ensures that adult content will be filtered from your search results. To check that Safe Search is enabled, go to the Advanced Settings – Filter Settings screen and click the Block Search Terms link. The Safe Search Status indicator should be green. If it is red (disabled), click it once. When enabled, CyBlock will reset search engines to Safe Search even if users change the setting in the search engine.

To enforce Safe Search when performing search queries using a secure connection (https://) to Bing, Google, or Yahoo! and Safe Search is enabled, SSL Inspection has to be turned on for the categories in which these search engine sites reside. By default, this category is Search Engines. To enable SSL Inspection, go to Advanced Settings – Proxy Settings and click the SSL Inspection link. Select your groups and/or IDs and categories including any custom categories that contain these search engine sites. Adult content will then be filtered from search results.

For additional assistance, please contact Technical Support at (321) 953-5351, Ext. 4 or support@wavecrest.net.

Enforce Safe Search in Google, Yahoo and Bing with CyBlock

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 Releases: CyBlock 5.9.2 and Cyfin 7.9.2

New versions of Wavecrest Computing’s CyBlock and Cyfin Internet filtering and monitoring software were recently released. Below is a list of some of the enhancements included in these versions.

  • Enhancement – Groups and IDs. Subgrouping up to 10 levels is supported.
  • Enhancement – Run Now. You can now run any scheduled report immediately. Simply go to the Reports – Schedule – Run Now screen and click on the report you want to run. The report will be delivered using the scheduled report settings you previously configured.
  • Enhancement – Array. The communication between computers in a Wavecrest product array has been enhanced to do authentication automatically. This prevents communication from halting when a “secondary” machine responds to a “primary” machine with an authentication request.
  • Enhancement – Safe Search (CyBlock ISA Only). The Google and Yahoo Safe Search is now fully implemented with this release. Go to the Setup – Filtering screen to enable this feature.

For full release notes on the products, please visit the forum at https://forum.wavecrest.net/index.php. Current customers can download the latest release from their product by going to the Administration – Product Update screen.