School Guardian 5.0

Integrated Firewall and Web Content Filtering Solution

School Guardian is the integrated firewall and web content filtering solution that addresses the three major problems faced by school and college networks: blocking unsuitable web content, controlling access to Internet services and preventing attackers from compromising private systems.
Dynamic Content Analysis is the key technology that makes School Guardian so much more effective than other filtering products. All requested web pages are scanned for words and phrases from numerous categorised lists, including pornography, violence, drugs, racial hatred and gambling. As matches are found a points count is incremented until a configurable threshold is reached, whereupon the page is blocked. Obviously thresholds can be adjusted according to the audience, typically being set very low for young children, higher for senior school students and adults. This technique works for every web page in existence, regardless of whether it has ever been seen or categorised before. The sheer size and growth of the web is rendering the traditional blocklist technique of pre-categorising all web pages increasingly unworkable, with Google indexing more than nine billion web pages and another half a million new pages being added every day!
Effective as Dynamic Content Analysis is, School Guardian adds three further layers of content protection:
Google and other Internet search engines can be forced to operate in "safe search" mode, where they will not return search results or images that are unsuitable for a young audience.
Pages are checked for the presence of PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) codes, which allow the authors to indicate the nature of the page content.
A large URL/domain/IP address blocklist. This is primarily used to control access to time-wasting and "extra curricular" web sites, such as chat rooms, game and news sites. Time-based controls can be used to allow access to such websites outside of core hours.
School Guardian is not a "one size fits all" solution. The standard lists and controls provided by SmoothWall can be supplemented by locally maintained block and phrase list, allowing the filtering behaviour of the system to be totally customised for local needs and preferences. Multiple filtering policies can be configured to suit the needs of different age ranges, academic and administrative staff. School Guardian can be easily configured to temporarily allow selective access for particular study purposes to sites that are normally blocked.
When used in conjunction with a Microsoft Active Directory® or other LDAP authentication system, School Guardian determines the content filtering policy to apply based on the user identity. Having authenticated the user, School Guardian parses the list of Windows security groups of which the user is a member and selects the appropriate security policy for their group membership. No routine user management is required on the School Guardian system; this being performed solely on the Windows 2000 or 2003 server.
The new malicious code detection features of School Guardian 4.0 detect and remove common in-page exploits from HTML web pages, such as Active-X controls, Java Applets and Scripts. Such in-page exploits are not recognised by traditional anti-virus software, yet are often used to install spyware, viruses and Trojan horse software on user PCs.
Peer to Peer (P2P) networks pose multiple threats to school networks. Apart from the obvious likelihood of copyright violation from the illegal download of music and video, most P2P networks are funded by advertising and so it perhaps no surprise that they are notoriously riddled with viruses, Trojan horse remote control programs, spyware and other malicious code. P2P bandwidth utilisation is also a major problem, yet most P2P networks are difficult to block, as they use port agile software that can communicate with the P2P server over any open IP port, defeating static IP port blocking. School Guardian incorporates Deep Packet Inspection technology to identify and block P2P traffic regardless of the communications port it attempts to use.
School Guardian includes comprehensive reporting facilities to monitor Internet usage. Numerous standard reports provide information in both text and graphical formats on the most visited sites, attempted access to blocked pages, user activity and bandwidth utilisation. A "Drill down" mechanism allows any information to be explored to a greater depth, for example, from a report of blocked sites find which students have been attempting to access any particular site.
The firewall component of School Guardian defends school systems from outside attack, be that from the Internet at large or from other schools/users on the same shared network. The firewall also forms a major barrier to the spread of viruses and worms across large shared networks. School Guardian totally isolates the student network from the administrative network, preventing students from being able to access administrative systems. The integrated web proxy cache improves web performance and reduces bandwidth utilisation; with frequently accessed web pages being retrieved from the local proxy cache.
Installation, configuration or management of a School Guardian system requires no expert knowledge of Internet security or networking; everything is configured from a simple, intuitive web browser based Graphical user Interface. School ICT staff or teachers can ensure that their students remain safe from the perils of the Internet, customise system behaviour to suit local circumstances and provide management information to head teachers and governors.
Protect your students, your network and your school with SmoothWall School Guardian, the cost-effective security solution that puts you in control.

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