What's preventing you from putting in a proxy?

With new headlines almost daily about the rise in web threats, there's really no excuse for not having some protection against malware that comes across from web sites. A proxy or secure web gateway would go a long way in reducing the vulnerability of your organization's web surfers to malicious intent.

So if you're organization doesn't have a proxy or secure web gateway, the question then is why? Is it a cost / budget issue? Do you think the technology is too difficult to implement without a specialist on staff? Are you afraid of the user experience with web browsing after you implement a proxy?

It it's cost, then think about the cost of one serious malware breach spreading across the workstations in your organization. There should be some budget available to prevent that given the overall likelihood of a significant malware event from a web source only continues to increase.

If it's complexity, then you should consider looking at new easier to use products like Blue Coat's ProxyOne platform. Compare it with other appliances on the market and see which one is the easiest to implement. There are definitely more vendors going after the ease of use market than ever before.

Finally, what's the user experience after you put in a proxy. By all accounts you should have better performance, especially if you put in a caching proxy. A caching proxy will cache information from the world wide web so that the end user can fetch it locally if it's been asked for before, improving the overal experience of the user with web browsing. Web caching browsers are also used by many service providers to improve their user's experiences with web browsing.

So what are you waiting for? Go put in the requisition for a secure web gateway or web proxy today.