Web Filtering At Home

For those of you that have been trying to figure out how to protect your home PC from malware on websites, and keep your kids from getting to content on the Internet that you deem unacceptable, there's a free solution from one of the major proxy vendors.

Blue Coat Systems offers a free program for home use, called "K9 Web Protection". You can download it at http://www.getk9.com. It offers the same protection as their proxy web filtering solution for enterprises.

With K9 you can get protection from malware and spyware sites, while having full control to block categories such as adult content, gambling, and other sites you may deem unacceptable. The best part of this is it's free, so no risk in trying it.

McAfee to Buy Secure Computing

Yesterday, McAfee announced it was buying troubled security vendor Secure Computing. Secure's had its share of problems this past year including telling financial analysts that it was suspending forward guidance for the year. That combined with most of the top execs from the Ciphertrust acquisition leaving the company seems to have led to this buyout.

McAfee has never been strong in selling appliances and this acquisition gives them a well known entry in the security market. Time will tell as to whether they can build on the WebWasher (SecureWeb) and IronMail (SecureMail) products.

Web based attacks pick up some steam

The above linked Network World article on Web based attacks should give any IT administrator some pause for concern. Especially if you aren't protecting your end-users that are browsing the internet with some sort of secure web gateway or proxy device.

Hackers continue to find new ways to cause harm to the end-user and keeping your end-users protected is a full time job.