Detect and destroy web proxy servers

A new article on why anonymous proxies are bad was just released on the Search Security website. It also covers defense mechanisms against anonymous proxies.

The obvious reason why anonymous proxies are bad, is of course they allow end-users in an organization to bypass any existing web security that may be in place, and gives the end-user an opportunity to bring malware into the organization.

The article specifically points out something many of your users may forget about the web security you've put in place for them:

The products also protect an enterprise from content on legitimate sites that are unknowingly hosting malware via third-party ads by trying to block malware that may be dispersed via the adds.

The article goes on to say that an important part of blocking access to anonymous proxies is having visibility in your network. If you don't understand what's leaving your network, you'll never know when your network is being compromised. Visibility isn't just capturing packets, but understanding data on an application level as well. Somehow this sounded strangely like Blue Coat's recent Application Delivery Network vision we talked about recently in this blog as well. Other vendors seem to be joining this bandwagon as well, and I'm sure we'll see more on this topic in the year to come.