3 - 9 February 2000

GFI launches new internet access control product

by Anthony Manduca

GFI has launched a new internet access control tool, LANguard. LANguard ensures productive use of the internet, monitors internal traffic for threats and helps secure the network against unauthorised access. LANguard also includes a revolutionary feature that can prevent web searches for specified words and phrases.

"Organisations worldwide rely on the internet as an essential business tool, but many companies recognise that a large percentage of internet use at the workplace is actually out of personal interest rather than for work-related purposes, resulting in great productivity loss. LANguard stems unproductive use of the internet by monitoring users' web surfing patterns according to the organisation's specific requirements," Nick Galea, president of GFI Fax & Voice, told The Malta Business Weekly.

LANguard enables a company to monitor internet use on its network and allows the company to block types of external traffic or specific sites that it deems non-productive. This way, through LANguard an organisation can set up its own network policy and block types of traffic (for example, IRC, FTP) as well as preventing access to specific sites (such as www.hotmail.com).

LANguard includes a unique, revolutionary feature which permits users to visit search engines on the web, but not to search for sites which contain unproductive or objectionable material, according to specific keywords selected by the organisation, such as "sex", "gambling", "stocks" or "sports".

LANguard also helps protect against internal security threats, such as users accessing confidential data and hacking into shares to which entry is barred. LANguard shows the security administrator which users are accessing specific shares on PCs so that users who have cracked someone else's password can quickly be detached.

Besides, LANguard helps to block all TCP/IP external traffic from the internet and helps protect the network from electronic break-ins, penetration attacks, hackers and other threats.

"LANguard use revolutionary sniffer technology that allows it to reside on any machine in the network. Unlike other internet access control products that are based on using a proxy server or a gateway, LANguard does not slow down internet access, does not require network reconfiguration and does not require you to change internet settings at each workstation! This makes LANguard much easier to install, deploy and maintain," Mr Galea said.

In addition to protection against internet misuse, LANguard includes the following features: