Network a three way balancing act - Network speed vs. Content filtering vs. Malware/Virus attacks

Message from dthibeau@post03.curry.edu

Message from russ.leathe@gordon.edu

Hello Rob,

Best of 2012 to you as well.  We have historically done #1 but are planning in the next few months to implement a dns black hole setup to add #3 to our approach (still doing #1).

- Scott



Scott Krajewski             
Director, IT Services           
Augsburg College    
http://www.augsburg.edu/it/
The Link: IT Newsletter
http://augnet.augsburg.edu/thelink



>>> On 1/4/2012 at 08:00 AM, Robert Paterson <rpaterson@MOLLOY.EDU> wrote:

Happy New Year all!!!   The CIO list community was recently discussing “Web content filtering” in response to a query from Richard Nelson. My impression was that most places do not filter web content.   My director of network services came to me yesterday with the three way balancing act described in the subject. I assume those who don’t filter content have ways to limit or prevent the malware/virus that are associated with certain kinds of sites. I would be interested in hearing how. Is this the old axiom “you can pick two of the three” …   I can see several options: 1.    A laissez faire approach where sites are not scanned and malware is managed at the desktop by a user support team. 2.    A managed approach where sites that are known to deliver malware are scanned to verify they are clean, thus slowing network access. 3.    A managed approach where sites that are known to deliver malware are blocked     How do you address these issues?   Best, Rob     Dr. Robert Paterson Vice President, Information Technology, Planning & Research Molloy College Rockville Centre, NY 11571 516-678-5000 ex 6443

********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

At my previous institution we implemented option 3 and saw a dramatic drop in malware issues. It freed up a lot of Help desk and desktop services time. From: Robert Paterson > Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE CIO Constituent Group Listserv > Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:00:15 -0500 To: > Subject: [CIO] Network a three way balancing act - Network speed vs. Content filtering vs. Malware/Virus attacks Happy New Year all!!! The CIO list community was recently discussing “Web content filtering” in response to a query from Richard Nelson. My impression was that most places do not filter web content. My director of network services came to me yesterday with the three way balancing act described in the subject. I assume those who don’t filter content have ways to limit or prevent the malware/virus that are associated with certain kinds of sites. I would be interested in hearing how. Is this the old axiom “you can pick two of the three” … I can see several options: 1. A laissez faire approach where sites are not scanned and malware is managed at the desktop by a user support team. 2. A managed approach where sites that are known to deliver malware are scanned to verify they are clean, thus slowing network access. 3. A managed approach where sites that are known to deliver malware are blocked How do you address these issues? Best, Rob Dr. Robert Paterson Vice President, Information Technology, Planning & Research Molloy College Rockville Centre, NY 11571 516-678-5000 ex 6443 ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Message from mike.cunningham@pct.edu

How do you decide what sites are known to deliver malware?

The devices work much like SPAM filters, in that there is a service component that updates regularly with new sites. There is also the ability for a user to request an exception (which rarely happened) and the ability to add sites. Among the vendors are BlueCoat and Barracuda. On 1/6/12 12:09 PM, "Mike Cunningham" wrote: >How do you decide what sites are known to deliver malware? > >