SmoothWall is first vendor to offer content-based blocking of Flash-based games

In recent years, flash-based online games have become extremely popular. According to Comscore, online game sites pull in over a quarter (28%) of the total worldwide Internet population with the average online gamer visiting gaming sites nine times in every month.

Organizations need to block online games to prevent users wasting time and preserve valuable bandwidth. Schools also have more serious concerns about the depictions of graphic violence, gore, criminal behavior, and even virtual sex, which many popular games contain. Even seemingly innocent games aren’t beyond suspicion, since (according to CEOP) online interactive forums are now popular places for pedophiles looking to find and groom young victims.  

Filtering online games is a complicated science.  Most web filters have a ‘gaming’ category, where known sites are listed and blocked. But such methods are a long way from foolproof. Game site operators are now going to increasing lengths to hide sites and offer users more ‘discreet’ ways to play. Determined gamers have also learnt how to outsmart school filters with less obvious searches (such as searching for just swf) and by embedding their favourite flash games into legitimate looking sites.

Although many filters offer the option to block flash files altogether, this is rarely a practical fix.  According to the Opera Browser Development Center, over a third of all websites now use flash and schools are now increasingly reliant upon a variety of flash and video-based learning resources. 

Web filtering vendor SmoothWall says the only viable solution is to inspect the actual content of flash files so they can be blocked or allowed based on what they contain. Product Manager Tom Newton said:

“In recognition of the filtering challenges online games pose, we have extended our Dynamic Content Analysis technology to encompass flash files, so we can rapidly scan their content and accurately block or allow them in exactly the same way. We can also identify a number of different flash applications (including malformed flash files) and we hope to include more categories as the technology matures”

Released today, the latest version of SmoothWall’s Guardian web filter also benefits from outbound (egress) filtering, more frequent updates and a number of flexibility and scalability improvements.   Existing users will get the new functionality via a feature pack download.  For more information visit www.smoothwall.net

90% of UK IT Managers surveyed believe access should be banned or restricted

Research released today by Bloxx, the innovator in Web content filtering, has highlighted the potential business impact of staff accessing Social Networking sites in the workplace.  A broad cross section of ICT professionals from UK public sector and private organisations was surveyed and over 90% believe that access to these sites should be restricted or banned.

The research shows that the biggest concerns for IT Managers are staff productivity, network security risks and damage to corporate reputation. This has led an increasing number of organisations to introduce a complete ban on staff accessing Social Networking sites. Surprisingly, according to the research it also seems common for staff to post disparaging remarks regarding other employees, their boss or the company on Social Networking sites. 

Over 22% of respondents do not have any controls in place for staff accessing Social Networking sites.  With the survey showing that 35% of IT managers believe staff are spending more than 30 minutes each per day on average accessing Social Networking sites, these companies are potentially providing an additional 16 days paid holiday for each employee.

However, this research also shows that Social Networking is increasingly being used as a valuable business tool and access is required to harness the benefits these sites can bring to businesses.

“UK businesses really can’t afford to underestimate some of the risks of Social Networking use in the workplace,” said Eamonn Doyle, Chief Executive Officer at Bloxx. “However, our view is that a complete ban is unrealistic and adopting this approach means that companies can’t obtain the potential business benefits of Social Networking and can alienate staff.”

“It really doesn’t have to be all or nothing with Social Networking - the strategy companies need to adopt is one that combines employee education, well-thought-out acceptable use policies and effective, discriminating, cutting-edge Web filtering technology,” adds Doyle.

The full results of the survey can be downloaded at: http://www.bloxx.com/Bloxx_social_networking_survey09.pdf  

London — 29 October 2009 — Imperva, the Data Security leader, today announced impressive growth in Q3 ’09 in the EMEA region, on the back of an 88% jump in revenue over Q3 ’08 and the addition of 22 new customers to its rapidly expanding customer base. Worldwide, it achieved a revenue surge of 45% compared to the same quarter a year ago while also adding 94 new customers.

 As companies rely more on online business to generate revenue and provide services, they have become a greater target for cybercrime. This is often as a result of hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in website applications which are difficult to protect using traditional security technology. By failing to secure sensitive customer information, companies are at risk of losing, not only, sales and profit but also their brands reputation. Imperva’s web application firewall and database activity monitoring technologies help companies protect web applications and databases against attacks, therefore ensuring companies protect customers and their business.

CREDANT accomplishes global market adoption and >500% growth internationally despite recessionary trends

London, 28th October:  CREDANT Technologies, the market leader in endpoint data protection solutions today announced their best quarterly revenue bookings in the history of the company.  CREDANT enjoyed great success across the board in achieving these numbers, and particular success internationally, where they recorded 577% growth compared with the same quarter last year.  CREDANT also signed a multi-million dollar deal, their biggest ever to date, with one of the world’s largest commercial banks looking to secure all of their endpoint devices including laptops, desktops and USBs.