Do as I say not as I do

This article on security hits upon something most IT admins are probably familiar with. While many of us impose restrictions and policy on our end-users, there's often times we bypass them ourselves, putting our own systems at risk. In addition as the article talks about, even if we are diligent at work, we're less so with our own personal computers at home.

We take the risk thinking it's not likely we'll get infected if we bypass the web proxy at work, and we don't have any URL filtering or web based protection on our home computers. There's really no excuse for bypassing the proxy at work, but at home that's a less simple problem to solve. Most of us aren't going to shell out the money to buy a proxy for home like the one at work. There's good news here though. Blue Coat Systems (maker of the Proxy SG appliance) offers a free version of their software for home use. It's called "K-9" and can be found at www.getk9.com. It uses the same web filtering software as their Proxy SG appliance for the home PC. It's available for Windows and Mac, so there's no excuse not to protect your home system now.