In the News: Risks of Anonymous Proxies

A recent article (linked above) on the risks of anonymous proxies (which have become a popular way of avoiding the corporate or school proxy), indicated that at least 5% or more of anonymous proxies contained some kind of malware. Users accessing these anonymous proxies, put their organizations at risk for drive-by spyware, viruses and trojans. They can also possibly expose your users to identity theft and your organization to information theft.

Your end-user may find access to barred sites by using an anonymous proxy, violating corporate or policy or even regulatory requirements. The article describes methods to combat anonymous proxies and recommends such features as SSL interception in a proxy, and advanced proxies that recognize anonymous proxy sites. In case you don't think you're vulnerable, set up a test PC in your corporate network and point the browser at a few anonymous proxies, you may be surprised at the result.