CFS

Organizations of every kind assume substantial risks and costs when they provide Internet access, particularly when those connections are used to access sites containing information or images that are inappropriate, illegal or dangerous. Unrestricted Web access can result in excessive non-productive Web surfing, creating tremendous losses in productivity. SonicWALL Content Filtering Service (CFS) provides the ideal combination of control and flexibility to ensure the highest levels of protection and productivity. SonicWALL CFS prevents individual users from accessing inappropriate content while reducing organizational liability and increasing productivity.

SonicWALL CFS allows enforcement of User Level Authentication (ULA) by requiring individuals to log on to the corporate network with their username and password. Administrators are given complete control over who may or may not access the Internet, further enhancing organizational control, protection and productivity.

This innovative solution uses Cerberian's comprehensive URL database to instantly sort questionable or inappropriate sites into categories. The network administrator applies policies to each category, enforcing the desired levels of access for groups and individuals. Approval or denial of access can be made by category, individual, or time of day. This flexibility allows organizations to easily maximize productivity while protecting users and the organization against objectionable content.

When a network user requests a URL or Web site, SonicWALL CFS captures that destination and checks it against its immense database. If the user does not have permission to access this type of material, denial is enforced. The entire process, from request to denial or permission, takes only a fraction of a second. Driven by a powerful new rating and caching architecture, SonicWALL CFS is an enterprise-grade service that rates and filters millions of URLs, IP addresses and Web sites. Ratings for acceptable Web sites are cached within the SonicWALL appliances for instantaneous access.

Administered through an intuitive interface, SonicWALL CFS enables filtering and control to take place directly over a LAN, WLAN or VPN. The innovative rating and caching architecture and remarkable speed of SonicWALL CFS combined with the power and scalability of SonicWALL appliances delivers an integrated, easy-to-use, manageable solution for networks of any size.

Content Filtering Service Architecture

Premium Editions

SonicWALL CFS Premium Editions provide businesses, educational institutions and government agencies with the ability to transparently enforce protection and productivity policies and block inappropriate and objectionable Web content. Where SonicWALL CFS Standard offers protection by blocking up to 12 categories of content, SonicWALL CFS Premium Editions deliver even greater protection and control by blocking content in more than 50 categories as well as offering advanced features including Group Policies and Dynamic Rating.

Content Filtering Service Features & Benefits

Appliance-based, Scalable Content Filtering Solution. SonicWALL Content Filtering Service is an enterprise-class, scalable content filtering service that requires no additional hardware or deployment expenditures.

Web Site Rating and Caching. The innovative SonicWALL CFS architecture catches URL ratings locally on the SonicWALL appliance. These Web site ratings are stored for all future users that attempt to visit the URLS, making response time to frequently visited sites virtually instantaneous. SonicWALL CFS Premium Editions dynamically rate pages not in the database and automatically populate the database for future access.

Comprehensive Database. SonicWALL CFS reduces costs and extends protection by combining a comprehensive, continuously updated database featuring millions of URLs, IP addresses and domains with a unique caching system that reduces latency to a fraction of a second.

Continuously Updated Database. SonicWALL CFS reduces administrative costs and extends protection by automatically updating the content filter database continuously with new and relocated sites.

Local URL Filtering Control. SonicWALL CFS provides local filtering control, allowing network administrators to specify domains or hosts to be allowed ("Trusted") or denied ("Forbidden"). This capability can be used to customize the Content Filter Database, or to allow access to sites in a custom database, making the system even more effective at blocking objectionable material.

Java™, ActiveX® and Cookie Blocking. The ability of SonicWALL CFS to block most automatically downloaded files increases security beyond the capabilities of most firewalls. Java and ActiveX are often used for hacker attacks. Cookies create privacy concerns, because they direct a remote Web browser to save small amounts of data on the local disk, and can be used to store preference information and track Web usage history.

User Level Authentication (ULA). SonicWALL CFS provides network administrators with a greater level of control over who may or may not access the Internet by enforcing ULA, which requires users to log on to the corporate network with a username and password.

Block by Time of Day. SonicWALL CFS allows network administrators to choose the hours when content filtering takes place. A school could, for example, filter specific content during school hours and remove that filter after school. A business could allow unfiltered Internet access to employees during lunch hours and after work hours.

Group Policies. SonicWALL CFS Premium Editions give administrators the flexibility to enforce custom policies for groups of users on the network. Multiple policies can be created that filter by category type and by time of day.

Category Blocking. SonicWALL CFS employs an innovative rating architecture that utilizes a dynamic database of millions of URLs, IP addresses and domains to block multiple categories of objectionable and inappropriate Web content such as porn, hate, violence and others, providing network administrators with greater control to transparently enforce acceptable use policies.

Integrated Management and Reporting. SonicWALL CFS can forward data directly into SonicWALL’s award-winning Global Management System (GMS) and ViewPoint reporting package to generate detailed reports on Internet usage.

Web-based Management. SonicWALL CFS provides an easy to use Web-based management interface for simple policy configuration while also providing greater control over Internet usage.