Mucking Up Malware

For a long time, the most accessible pathway for malware and threats to enter a corporate network was through e-mail. After widespread and rapidly evolving nuisances like the Melissa virus or Netsky, businesses took appropriate measures to shore up their defenses against e-mail threats.

Of course, it never takes the ill-intentioned very long to figure out how to thwart defenses. The largest harbinger of malware currently is the Internet. Compromised Web pages and sites that practice drive-by downloads are a few examples that pose a constant threat to the safety and security of a corporate network.

Security vendors have honed their products in response. Content filtering offerings have become more robust and more intelligent. The best products do so much more than report on which users are going to which sites: They prevent circumvention of Internet usage policies, report on the types of traffic coming in and out of the network, and use intelligent scanning methodologies to prevent access to compromised sites that may not even appear on traditional black lists.

The CRN Test Center took a look at three leading midmarket products: Sophos' WS1000 Web Security Appliance, ContentWatch's ContentProtect Security Appliance CP100 and SonicWall's Network Security Appliance 3500.

This was a challenging comparison because all three products made a strong showing in testing. Each product did its job, namely filtering Web traffic and providing information on that traffic flowing in and out of the network. Yet, each also had unique features, interfaces and functionality.

Products were tested on ease of deployment, detail of management interface, how easy or not it was to navigate through the interface and how well filtering blocked access to restricted sites and Web proxies.

Next: Sophos WS1000