New Year, New Threats

2009 brings with the anticipation of more malware, not less. Almost all the leading anti-malware firms have been quoted as expecting malware to increase in 2009 and the foreseeable future. While spam has decreased over the last few years, malware on websites has been on the increase. Drive-by downloads make the risk even greater as the act of merely visiting a website can infect a workstation. Even with this downturn in the economy, any enterprise should be investing in security, as the costs of a malware infection are going to be greater than any cost associated with security device like a proxy gateway for web access.

Proxy Gateways have the added benefit of being able to restrict certain types of websites in order to reduce the bandwidth costs of the organization's internet access. Any admin should be aware of how much bandwidth is being used for recreational activities, and how much is available for corporate use. Just be sure when implementing a security device like a proxy, to enable URL filtering and malware scanning.