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Internet access control
Setting up an appropriate Internet access policy is very important since almost every workplace today provides employee access to the Internet. UserGate has a set of features that allow administrators to define and maintain their company’s Internet access policy. They include:
- User-based access management
- Categorized URL filtering
- Application firewall
- Speed limitations and traffic quotas
- Internet traffic monitoring and reporting
- Web statistics client
- Billing system
User-based access management
Users in UserGate are accounts to which Internet access is granted (or denied), traffic rules are applied, and for which statistics are calculated. A ”user” is defined based on a specific parameter, such as an IP or MAC address, login/password pair, Active Directory account, or Windows login.
To simplify traffic management, users can be combined into groups by using the ‘Groups’ feature in UserGate. Another way to combine computers or users is through one of the many authorization methods. Administrators can choose either or both methods to effectively manage multiple users, computers, and subnetworks.
Categorized URL filtering
Internet abuse in the workplace raises serious issues for employers and has many negative effects for a company. The negative effects can include a decrease in work productivity, excessive traffic consumption, Internet worms and Trojans, identity theft, and copyright infringement, just to name a few. In order to minimize or eliminate problems caused by personal or even illegal use of the Internet, web filtering (also known as content-filtering) is a strongly recommended part of your company’s security defenses.
Due to our technology partnership with BrightCloud, we have developed Entensys URL Filtering. This technology is integrated into UserGate and includes the hosted BrightCloud Service and the BrightCloud Master Database. The database contains more than 470 million URLs divided into 70 categories, such as adult, gambling, games, shopping, or travel. Administrators can choose to restrict access to certain websites or categories in general or for particular users or user groups.
Application firewall
Real time communications – instant messaging, chat programs such as IRC, and web conferencing and peer-to-peer networking tools – are in regular use in many organizations today. According to recent reports, instant messaging is used in more than 80% of organizations and the number of users grows significantly each year, making it the fastest growing communications medium of all time. To protect against security threats posed by Internet-based applications, we recommend using application filtering.
Application filtering is a technique used to filter or block certain network traffic by application type. The purpose of it is twofold – enable administrators to restrict personal use of Internet-based applications, such as instant messengers or peer-to-peer clients, and protect a local network from application-specific Internet threats.
Speed limitations and traffic quotas
UserGate is very flexible in the way it allows system administrators to control traffic speed. There are two modules in UserGate where speed limits can be defined – ‘Traffic policy’ and ‘Bandwidth management’. The former is used to define rules which are applied to certain users and user groups. The latter is used to restrict traffic according to certain parameters such as a specific adapter, protocol (e.g. TCP or UDP), source and destination IP address, and/or port.
Traffic quotas and time restrictions are specific to user-based management and allow a limit to be set for a particular user or user group. When setting a traffic quota, an administrator has plenty of options to define a rule that fits particular circumstances. For instance, the rule can be set to activate when the requirements, such as a certain protocol or time of day, are met.
Internet traffic monitoring and reporting
UserGate has a full-fledged statistics feature to enable administrators and supervisors to enforce the company’s Internet access policy effectively. Statistics can prove the extent to which the Internet is abused in the workplace, and can serve as the primary basis for decision-making when it comes to restricting or blocking certain Internet resources for a specific user in order to fight the abuse.
Web statistics client
Statistics are available over the Internet through a regular web browser via the UserGate Web Statistics feature. The statistics are presented in the form of a web page with a user-friendly interface, graphs, and charts for better readability. The amount of information available depends on the access level of the viewer.
Billing system
UserGate has a built-in billing system, which performs automatic calculations of Internet expenses for each user based on time and/or traffic consumed. The administrator can introduce tariffs to the system, and apply them to users or user groups. Expenses are calculated according to those tariffs and are shown in the statistics.
