GFI WebMonitor

Internet Monitoring, Web Security and Internet Access Control Software

In addition to being a very useful resource which has changed the way we work, the Internet is also a great source of concern for businesses. If not managed correctly, the lack of Internet usage monitoring can result in lost productivity and can prove to be a great security threat to your business. While shutting off the Internet completely is impractical, Internet monitoring software like GFI WebMonitor™ can help you boost employee productivity while putting your mind at rest about security breaches which can be very costly to your business.

GFI WebMonitor™ boosts employee productivity by giving you complete Internet access control to monitor what users are browsing and downloading in real-time. Research by IDC shows that up to 40% of employee Internet access is non-work related. Internet monitoring software provides network administrators with the tools that enable you to monitor employees' web browsing activities and to ensure that any files downloaded are free of viruses and other malware.

GFI WebMonitor Benefits:

• Proactively protect your network
  Control downloadable file types, scan downloads using multiple antivirus engines and block known malicious sites.
• Predict web security risks
  Uses the reputation score of a URL or IP address to predict the security risk involved in visiting a website.
• Increase productivity
  Reduce time wasted by employees online through the granular management of their browsing habits.
• Filter Internet use
  Create and enforce an Internet usage policy to filter websites based on a list of over 280,000,000 domains.
• Maximise available bandwidth
  Set time and bandwidth thresholds, block streaming media, and gain via proxy caching.
• Prevent data leakage
  Block socially-engineered phishing websites and other online scams by controlling Internet access.
• Monitor HTTPS traffic
  Protect against malware masking itself in HTTPS traffic, and block attempts to circumvent web filtering.
• Immediate ROI
  Reap financial rewards immediately by controlling employees' Internet usage and protecting your network through best practices in web security.

Granular Internet monitoring

GFI WebMonitor's Internet monitoring capabilities provide visibility into what sites your users are browsing, how much time they are spending and how much bandwidth they're consuming. It also provides interactive drill-down capabilities, showing you the site categories being visited by particular users, how much time and bandwidth is being consumed, and more. Employing internet monitoring software is often the first step towards formulating an effective Internet Usage Policy that meets your specific business needs.

Web security to protect against viruses, spyware, malware and phishing scams

GFI WebMonitor lets you define web filtering and web browsing policies to help enforce an effective Internet Usage Policy. Administrators can allow or restrict access to different website categories as well as setting time or bandwidth thresholds, on a per user or per IP basis. GFI WebMonitor's extensive site categorization database, with coverage of over 280,000,000 domains that are updated daily, enables you to manage what sites your users can browse while blocking access to websites in particular categories, such as adult materials, gaming, personal email, P2P, social networks like Facebook and MySpace, and more.

Why use GFI WebMonitor?

• Increase productivity by managing your employees' web browsing habits
• Protect the network from dangerous downloads in real-time
• Maximize bandwidth
• Effectively enforce an Internet Usage Policy and reduce cyberslacking – time wasted by employees online
• Prevent data leakage through socially-engineered websites
• Benefit from multiple scanning engines to scan for viruses and other malware.

What's new in GFI WebMonitor™ 2011 R3?:

Released: October 06, 2011

WebSecurity Edition:

Blocklisting of malicious websites – powered by ThreatTrack

GFI WebMonitor 2011 R3 now provides the ability to proactively block websites serving malicious content and allows you to automatically blacklist websites that are known to be distributing malware, phishing content or serving content with malicious intent.

Malware attacks are most effective in the first eight hours of being launched. GFI WebMonitor therefore uses a “Known Bad Websites” list – powered by ThreatTrack – that is updated every hour to ensure that even the latest zero-hour threat is immediately blocked. So as not to permanently label legitimate websites which have been temporarily compromised, websites are revisited often and are automatically phased out of the list when they no longer pose a threat.

ThreatTrack is powered by GFI Sandbox™, our automated malware analysis tool.

Support for additional IM clients

This release adds support for blocking a number of thin IM clients such as the ones below:

• Yahoo! Messenger
• Gmail chat
• Instant Messaging portals (includes Facebook chat)

In addition it includes an Auto-Update engine to be able to distribute new signatures as they are discovered – so you do not need to worry about employees finding new ways around the system.

WebFilter Edition:

Website reputation-based filtering
Waiting for a website to be classified as dangerous can be a risky game to play. Proactive protection from Internet threats can save you from being infected and therefore from potentially devastating consequences.

GFI WebMonitor now uses reputation-based filtering, which checks the reputation score of a web site or IP address to predict the security risk involved in visiting that website. Website reputation is calculated from hundreds of metrics that include infection history, age of establishment, site popularity, site content and many other; a score is then awarded from 1 (high risk) to 100 (trust worthy).

Website reputation-based filtering adds a proactive layer of security as well as enabling flexible Internet access policies. For example, with GFI WebMonitor, you can enable access to "Shopping" websites while simultaneously providing protection by blocking access to low-reputation shopping sites.

Streaming media blocking policies
As audio and video streaming has become an integral part of many websites, GFI WebMonitor now allows you to save bandwidth by blocking streaming media. Audio and video content are a routine feature on news, entertainment and sports and this can quickly create a network bottleneck especially in peak times or during events of interest.

Streaming media policies enable you to allow access to the sites which are providing the media while blocking access to the actual stream, ensuring that a healthy medium is reached.

This feature also includes an auto-update engine to be able to distribute new signatures as they are discovered.

Soft blocking – Warn and allow
You are now able to allow trusted users to override blocking after warning them that a URL is in breach of company policy; putting into practice the concept of self-policing.

Access Monitoring Activity Log
In the new edition of GFI WebMonitor you can see an exact trail of what a user has done, including the time when a specific website was visited. It offers an option to view a listing of sites/pages which have been accessed together with the time and date of when they were accessed.

New features in GFI WebMonitor™ 2011 R2

Released: May 17, 2011

All editions:

Anonymization of personal data
In some countries, notably Italy and Germany, the law requires that any personally identifiable information is not easily available, and should be revealed only under certain circumstances (e.g., investigation by relevant authorities). GFI WebMonitor 2011 R2 now helps comply with this law – by providing an option to enable anonymization of personal data, which makes all personal data in reports visible only by using the four-eye principle(which requires at least two people to witness/approve a certain activity).

WebFilter edition:

Enforcing of SafeSearch
With GFI WebMonitor 2011 R2, it is now possible to mandate SafeSearch on search engines. This option is typically customizable at the user level, i.e., the user can disable it, however, when enabling this feature, the personal option will be overridden and the one mandated by GFI WebMonitor will be used instead. This feature is particularly useful in educational institutions where objectionable material should never make it to the user’s browser.

New features in GFI WebMonitor™ 2011

Released: March 8, 2011

Proxy caching
GFI WebMonitor 2011 (standard version) implements caching such that files and other objects/resources are delivered to the end-user from a cache on the GFI WebMonitor machine when possible, thus improving end-users’ web browsing experience and reducing bandwidth consumption and associated costs.

HTTPS scanning
GFI WebMonitor 2011 (standard version) can decrypt SSL-encrypted web traffic, scan its contents for malware, and re-encrypt it. This extends the granularity of filtering and control offered by GFI WebMonitor through download control and virus scanning policies to such encrypted traffic.

Time-based browsing policies
With GFI WebMonitor 2011, an administrator can define policies based on browsing time. For example, the administrator can allow User X to browse news category sites for only one hour per day. When users exceed their time allowance threshold, a notification page is displayed informing them that their permitted browsing time has been used up. These policies can help enhance employee productivity by enforcing control on the amount of time spent browsing the Internet.

Bandwidth-based browsing policies
GFI WebMonitor 2011 also allows the administrator to define policies based on bandwidth thresholds. For example, the administrator can allow User X to download a maximum of 100 MB per week. When users exceed their bandwidth threshold, a notification page is displayed informing them that their bandwidth quota for the defined period has been reached. Advanced options also allow the administrator to configure a bandwidth threshold for a particular category of users. This helps administrators in managing bandwidth usage by enforcing control on the amount of bandwidth consumed by users.

Improved interactive access and blocked activity monitoring reports
GFI WebMonitor 2011 allows one to interactively review the browsing habits of users with the ability to drill down by users, categories, domains and sites, in order to determine, for example, which site categories are being browsed by whom, which users are browsing most, etc. It is also possible to interactively drill down into the policy infringements trapped by GFI WebMonitor, with the ability to do this by users, categories, policy type and policies, in order to determine, for example, which category of sites has caused most policy breaches.

Features:

GFI WebMonitor is now available in two versions:

• GFI WebMonitor – as a standalone proxy version which works in most network environments
• GFI WebMonitor for ISA Server – a dedicated plug-in for Microsoft ISA Server only

GFI WebMonitor™ is available in 3 editions:

• WebFilter Edition: Includes URL filtering and website categorization
• WebSecurity Edition: Includes anti-virus and anti-phishing protection and spyware detection
• UnifiedProtection Edition: Combines both WebFilter and WebSecurity editions

The features below are available with all editions. (Features available exclusively within a particular edition are listed further on in this page.)

Monitor or Block a Connection in Real Time
Administrators can see what websites users are currently browsing and what files are being downloaded. An active connection, browsing session or download can easily be blocked, simply by clicking the block connection icon. This proves very useful if you need to interrupt the download of an overlarge file.

Monitor and Block Applications' Hidden Downloads
Some software applications connect to their home pages to download updates without the user’s consent, using HTTP tunneling. Although this reduces software version administration, it also presents a security risk.  Unknown applications (or Trojans) often use the same technique to download malicious files. Spyware, adware and pornware can be downloaded to a user’s PC without his/her consent. GFI WebMonitor gives you control over which sites are allowed to distribute updates, ensuring that only safe sites (for example, www.microsoft.com) gain behind-the-scenes access to your computers.

Allow Exceptions through Whitelist and Blacklists
Any URL or user or IP can be added permanently or temporarily to the whitelist or blacklist which will supersede all web filtering and web security policies. For example, you could temporarily grant access to a particular user for his or her personal webmail account for a specified period of time, say over employee lunch breaks.

Controlled Access to the Configuration and Monitoring
GFI WebMonitor allows you to select which users can access the program’s configuration and monitoring interfaces. You can assign rights based on either the IP of the computer from which access is being made or by the domain-authenticated username of the client trying to load the configuration. Only users in GFI WebMonitor’s authorized users or IP list will be given access.

Support for Virtual Environments
Organizations that are currently using or plan to use virtualization on their network can still install and use a range of GFI products with confidence. GFI WebMonitor supports and runs on the most common virtualization technologies in use, namely VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Features of GFI WebMonitor - WebFilter Edition and Unified Protection Edition

Surf time policies – reduce productivity loss
With GFI WebMonitor, an administrator can define policies based on surf time. For example, the administrator can allow users to browse news and social networking sites for not more than one hour per day. When users exceed their time allowance threshold, a notification page is displayed informing them that their allowed browsing time has been used up. Such policies can be defined for specific websites or entire categories of websites.

Bandwidth policies – control bandwidth hogs
The administrator can also define policies based on bandwidth thresholds. For example, the administrator can allow users to download a maximum of 100 MB per day from video sharing and online file storage websites such as YouTube or MegaUpload. When users exceed their bandwidth threshold, a notification page is displayed informing them that their bandwidth quota for the defined period has been reached. These policies, too, can be defined for specific websites or entire categories of websites.

WebGrade™ Database Coverage of over 280m URLs
GFI WebMonitor allows you to define web browsing policies to restrict access to particular categories of websites,and set time or bandwidth thresholds of your choice, on a per user or per IP basis. Its WebGrade database offers coverage of over 280 million domains and extensive URL coverage across more than 30 languages, with additional websites being added continually. Due to the constantly changing nature of the web, GFI WebMonitor also queries GFI servers for the categorization of URLs that are not found in the local cached database. If a URL is found to be uncategorized, it is processed by the server and added to the database. Click here to learn about the URL classification process for the GFI WebMonitor WebGrade database.

Enforcing of SafeSearch
With GFI WebMonitor it is possible to mandate SafeSearch on search engines. This option is normally customizable at the user level, i.e., the user can disable it; however, by enabling this feature, the personal option will be overridden so that the one mandated by GFI WebMonitor is used instead. This feature is particularly useful in educational institutions where objectionable material should never make it to the user's browser through search engine result pages.

WebFilter policy exceptions
Apart from a generic Blacklist/Whitelist, the admin can also define site exceptions for each particular policy. A typical example will be to block all news sites except CNN.com.

Mitigate legal liability
Without the ability to exercise some form of management over what your users are browsing, you leave yourself open to legal liability in a variety of ways. Provide your employees with safe, well managed access to the Internet while on your premises and you will safeguard your company, your employees and your bottom line.

Website reputation-based filtering
Waiting for a website to be classified as dangerous can be a risky game to play. Proactive protection from Internet threats can save you from being infected and therefore from potentially devastating consequences. GFI WebMonitor provides reputation-based filtering, which uses the reputation score of a website or IP address to predict the security risk involved in visiting that website. A website's reputation is calculated from hundreds of metrics that include infection history, age of establishment, site popularity, site content and many others; a score is then awarded from one (high risk) to 100 (trustworthy). Website reputation-based filtering adds a proactive layer of security as well as enabling flexible Internet access policies. For example,GFI WebMonitor allows you to enable access to "Shopping" websites while simultaneously providing protection by blocking access to low-reputation shopping sites.

Policies to block streaming media
As audio and video streaming has become an integral part of many websites, GFI WebMonitor now allows you to save bandwidth by blocking streaming media. Audio and video content are a routine feature on news, entertainment and sports and this can quickly create a network bottleneck especially in peak times or during events of interest. Policies to block streaming media enable you to allow access to the sites which are providing the media while blocking access to the actual stream, ensuring that a healthy medium is reached. Specific streaming via media applications such as iTunes, Winamp, Quicktime, Windows Media Player can also be blocked. This feature includes an auto-update engine to be able to distribute new signatures as they are discovered.

Soft blocking – warn and allow
Allow trusted users to override blocking after warning them that a URL is in breach of company policy; putting into practice the concept of self-policing.

Access Monitoring Activity Log
View an exact trail of what a user has done, including the time when a specific website was visited. This log offers an option to view a listing of sites/pages which have been accessed together with the time and date of when they were accessed.

Flexible policies and policy exceptions

Features of GFI WebMonitor - WebSecurity Edition and Unified Protection Edition

Manage which file types users can download
Create multiple user/group/IP-based download control policies to reflect your organization's security policies, blocking the download of particular potentially malicious file types (such as exe, msi and more) for particular users, groups or IP addresses. You can also limit file types which could have legal implications for your business (such as MP3 or MPEG files). Dangerous files, like Trojan downloader programs, often attempt to penetrate a system masked as an innocuous file. GFI WebMonitor analyzes and detects the real file types and acts accordingly.

Scan Downloaded Files with Multiple Antivirus Engines

GFI WebMonitor uses multiple virus scanners to protect you against inadvertently downloading malicious software. Using multiple scanners drastically reduces the average time taken to obtain the latest virus signatures, greatly reducing the risk to your site by each new virus. Also, since each engine has its own heuristics and methods, each brings its own unique strength in detecting and correcting for the ever-increasing variety of viruses. Overall, more antivirus engines means more virus protection. GFI WebMonitor is bundled with Norman Virus Control and BitDefender. It automatically checks and updates the Norman Virus Control and BitDefender definition files as they become available. The GFI WebMonitor price includes updates for one year.

To achieve greater security and enhance the benefits gained by scanning via multiple antivirus engines, users can add the Kaspersky SuperSecure antivirus engine, available as an optional add-on. The Kaspersky SuperSecure database includes support for the detection of malicious software that can perform remote administration, keyboard espionage, password detection, automatic dial-up to paid sites, automatic downloads of files containing explicit materials and more. GFI WebMonitor automatically checks and updates the Kaspersky definition files as they become available.

Protect Against Socially Engineered Phishing Websites
Phishing is a social engineering technique that is used by malicious hackers to acquire personal information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details.  These sites are designed to lead users to believe that they are passing on their details to the genuine company. Online shopping and credit card companies are among the most targeted phishing websites. GFI WebMonitor protects users from the potential risks of social engineering by blocking access to phishing websites. This is done through the use of an auto-updatable database of phishing URLs.

Instant messaging (IM) control
Block IM clients, including Live Messenger(MSN), FaceBook Chat, GTalk/Gmail Chat, Yahoo! Messenger, and thin instant messaging portals which are used to circumvent IM blocking policies. This feature includes an auto-update engine to be able to distribute new signatures as soon as they are discovered.

GFI WebMonitor for ISA/TMG
GFI WebMonitor is also available as a dedicated plug-in for Microsoft’s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server and Threat Management Gateway Server (TMG). GFI WebMonitor seamlessly integrates with ISA/TMG, complementing the powerful firewalling features while giving IT Administrators the ability to get a much clearer picture of what type of traffic is being filtered, what type of Internet requests are being sent to the server and the ability to apply policies and rules based on IP, user or groups.

Blocking of malicious websites – powered by GFI ThreatTrack
GFI WebMonitor 2011 provides the ability to proactively block websites serving malware, phishing, rogue software, exploits or other malicious content. Malware attacks are most effective in the first eight hours of being launched. GFI WebMonitor therefore uses a "Known Bad Websites" list - powered by ThreatTrack - that is updated every hour to ensure that even the latest zero-hour threat is immediately blocked. In order to avoid the permanent labelling of a legitimate website which has been temporarily compromised, websites are revisited often and are automatically phased out of the list when they no longer pose a threat. ThreatTrack is powered by GFI Sandbox™, our automated malware analysis tool

General Features

Controlled access to the configuration and monitoring interface
GFI WebMonitor is configured through a web UI which allows you to access it remotely. To control access, IT administrators can select which users can access the program's configuration and monitoring interfaces. Access rights can be assigned based either on the IP of the computer or the domain-authenticated username. Access will only be granted to users in GFI WebMonitor's authorized users or IP list.

Monitor or block a connection in real time
Administrators can see what websites users are currently browsing and what files are being downloaded. An active connection, browsing session or download can easily be blocked, simply by clicking the block connection icon. This proves very useful if you need to interrupt the unauthorized download of an oversize file.

Easy interactive access to monitoring information
GFI WebMonitor issues detailed reports on all user access and blocked access by users, by sites, by categories. Users can drill down attain the required information, whilst interactive sorting allows administrators to quickly determine information such as Top Surfers, Top Downloaders, Top Uploaders, Top Policy Breakers, Top Sites Visited, Top Blocked users. This allows administrators to easily see who is breaching the company's Internet Usage Policy. Other information includes browsing restricted sites, downloading of malware infected files or file types that are blocked through download control policies.

Monitor hidden downloads
GFI WebMonitor can be configured to display a download progress window while a file is being downloaded and scanned. The file can then be obtained by clicking the 'Save' button in the download progress window. Some pieces of malware rely on the ability to download further files from the web to complete their infection of a computer. Not being aware of the GFI WebMonitor download progress window and not being able to get past it, such pieces of malware are blocked in their tracks. Download progress windows for which the file is not retrieved can be monitored so as to identify infections with such malicious applications performing "hidden downloads" – which can include Trojans, spyware and others.

Allow exceptions through whitelist and blacklist
Any URL or user or IP can be added permanently or temporarily to the whitelist or blacklist which will supersede all web filtering and web security policies. For example, you could temporarily grant access to a particular user for his or her personal webmail account for a specified period of time, say over employee lunch breaks.

Proxy caching
GFI WebMonitor implements caching, such that files and other objects/resources are delivered to the end-user from a cache on the GFI WebMonitor machine when possible, thus improving performance and reducing bandwidth consumption.

HTTPS scanning
GFI WebMonitor can decrypt SSL-encrypted web traffic, scan its contents for malware, and re-encrypt it. This stops users from bypassing your blocking policies by accessing sites over HTTPS. This extends the granularity of filtering and control offered by GFI WebMonitor through filtering, download control and virus scanning policies to such encrypted traffic.

Anonymization of personal data
In some countries, notably Italy and Germany, the law requires that any personally identifiable information is not easily available, and should be revealed only under certain circumstances (e.g., investigation by relevant authorities). GFI WebMonitor helps comply with this law – there is an option to enable anonymization of personal data, which makes all personal data in reports visible only by using the four-eye principle (which requires at least two people to witness/approve a certain activity).

Support for virtual environments
Organizations that are currently using or plan to use virtualization on their network can still install and use a range of GFI products with confidence. GFI WebMonitor supports and runs on the most common virtualization technologies in use, namely VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server and Microsoft Hyper-V.

Specifications:

 

System Requirements: Hardware

Minimum hardware requirements depend on GFI WebMonitor edition.

All Editions

• Two Network Interface Cards (for Gateway mode only)
• Router\gateway that supports traffic forwarding or port blocking (for Simple Proxy mode only)

WebFilter Edition – Minimum hardware requirements

• Processor: 2.0 GHz
• RAM: 1 GB (Recommended 4GB)
• Hard disk: 2 GB of available disk space.

WebSecurity Edition – Minimum hardware requirements

• Processor: 2.0 GHz
• RAM: 1 GB (Recommended 4GB)
• Hard disk: 10 GB of available disk space.

GFI WebMonitor UnifiedProtection Edition – Minimum hardware requirements

• Processor: 2.0 GHz
• RAM: 2 GB (Recommended 4GB)
• Hard disk: 12 GB of available disk space.

NOTE: Hard disc size depends on your environment, the size specified in the requirements is the minimum required to install and use GFI WebMonitor. The recommended is from 150-250GB.

System Requirements for GFI WebMonitor: Software

Supported Operating Systems - GFI WebMonitor can be installed on (x86/x64):

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• Microsoft Windows XP (SP2)
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Windows 7

Other required components

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
• Routing and Remote Access service on Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2008 (for Gateway mode only)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or later (for reporting purposes)

System requirements for GFI WebMonitor for ISA/TMG: Software

Supported operating systems - GFI WebMonitor for Microsoft ISA/TMG can be installed on:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (x86)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)

Other required components:

• Microsoft ISA Server 2004 (SP3) or later
• Microsoft ISA Server 2006
• Microsoft Forefront TMG 2010 (Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later
• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
• TCP/IP port 1007
• Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or later (for reporting purposes)
• (Recommended) Microsoft Firewall Client for ISA Server
• (Recommended) Microsoft Firewall Client for Microsoft Forefront TMG

Screenshots:

Click on a thumbnail to see that picture in full size!

GFI WebMonitor

 

Monitoring, web security and access control for ISA/TMG Server:

GFI WebMonitor™ for ISA/TMG is an internet monitoring software, web security and access control solution that gives users comprehensive control of the use of the Internet by employees in an organization.

Designed as a plug-in for Microsoft’s Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server and and Threat Management Gateway (TMG) Server, GFI WebMonitor provides an outstanding level of management to IT administrators who want to monitor, control and report on what employees are doing on the Internet.

GFI WebMonitor gives small and medium-sized businesses the tools they need to ensure a safer browsing experience, reduce the risk of malware attacks from web-borne threats, boosting employee productivity by reducing cyber-slacking as well as lowering the risk of legal liabilities because of inappropriate browsing.

Plug-in integrates seamlessly with ISA and TMG Server

GFI WebMonitor, which seamlessly integrates with ISA and TMG Server, complements the powerful firewalling features while giving IT Administrators the ability to get a much clearer picture of what type of traffic is being filtered, what type of Internet requests are being sent to the server and the ability to apply policies and rules based on IP, user or groups.

Internet monitoring, categorization and web filtering coverage of over 205m URLs

GFI WebMonitor for ISA/TMG Server provides users with excellent Internet monitoring, categorization and web filtering coverage of over 205m URLs. This allows you to manage what sites users can browse and block access to websites in particular categories, such as adult material, online gaming, personal email, peer-to-peer, Facebook, MySpace and more.

Web security to protect against viruses, spyware, malware and phishing scams

GFI WebMonitor’s powerful security features ensure that Internet users do not put the organization at risk of malware attacks, spyware and phishing attacks. The security edition of GFI WebMonitor for ISA/TMG allows IT administrators to monitor what files employees are downloading, to block file-types such as MP3s and to scan all files for viruses, spyware and malware using up to five multiple antivirus engines.

GFI WebMonitor for ISA/TMG lowers the risk of social engineering by blocking access to phishing websites through the use of an auto-updatable database of phishing URLs. The web monitoring features also allow you to monitor and block Live Messenger (MSN) chat sessions and file transfers.

GFI WebMonitor for ISA/TMG has won ISAserver.org Readers' Choice Awards for four years running - a continued vote of confidence in our technology.

Why use GFI WebMonitor?

• Increase employee productivity by managing your employees' web browsing habits
• Protect the network from dangerous downloads in real-time
• Reduce cyberslacking – time wasted by employees online
• Effectively enforce an Internet Usage Policy
• Prevent data leakage through socially-engineered websites
• Benefit from multiple scanning engines to ensure that downloads are free of viruses and other malware.

Awards and Reviews:

	Business Security Information reviews GFI WebMonitor Business Security Information reviews GFI WebMonitor and concludes that it's "geared to larger small businesses or medium-sized businesses" and although there is a learning curve involved, is ideal "if you really want to protect your business." - Business Security Information
	Increase productivity with GFI WebMonitor "A simple installation, great analytic and many other useful features like, custom policy control based on type of users, top policy breakers GFI Webmonitor is great tool for your increasing productivity of your employees." - Tutkiun
	Control and Monitor Your Network's Activity With GFI Webmonitor "GFI Webmonitor is an utility with endless possibilities. The tool is easy to install and use. Considering the user experience and wide range of functionality that it offers, I definitely recommend this tool to every network administrator." - Ampercent
	GFI WebMonitor review - A good step ahead GFI WebMonitor is a nice step int the right direction. The product is very easy to install, and the company that starts using it can see its benefits by the end of the first day of use."- Information Security Short Takes
	GFI WebMonitor review - Boon for Small and Midsize Organizations GFI WebMonitor gives you real time control over the internet activities of the users, it also provides a user-friendly interface for analyzing the statistics user wise, IP wise, URL wise or bandwidth wise. The features look quite impressive (especially the 'Top Policy Breakers' report). Interface is uncluttered and user-friendly." -eZaroorat
	Best Channel Product Award GFI WebMonitor was awarded Best Channel Product from Business Solutions Magazine - Business Solutions Magazine
	Retrohack gives 4.5 Domos to GFI WebMonitor Retrohack awards 4.5 Domos to GFI WebMonitor and "strongly recommend's this product"."GFI WebMonitor is an excellent choice for the small to medium business looking to add content, anti-phishing, and anti-malware layers to their network's armour. You get great protection, a small footprint, and it takes very little adminstrative overhead to implement and maintain." - RetroHack
	GFI WebMonitor voted ISAServer.org Readers' Choice Award Winner GFI WebMonitor for ISA Server was selected the winner in the Access Contorl category of the ISAserver.org Readers' Choice Awards - ISAserver.org
	GFI WebMonitor 2009: clear, simple and intuitive Leandro Amore describes GFI WebMonitor as a stable, intuitive and easy to use monitoring software that gives clear results and could provide organizations with further insight about their users' browsing habits - Leandro Amore
	GFI WebMonitor 2009 Review - Awarded 5 Gold Stars A review of the capabilities and features of GFI WebMonitor 2009, an integrated Web security, monitoring and Internet access control product from GFI Software - ISAServer.org
	GFI WebMonitor for ISA Server voted ISAserver.org Reader's Choice Award Winner WebMonitor for ISA Server was selected the winner in the ISA Monitoring and Administration category of the ISAserver.org Readers' Choice Awards - ISAserver.org, October 2009
	Best Channel Product 2009 Award Five Best Channel Product Awards organized by Business Solutions Magazine have been given to GFI's products. GFI rated exceptionally well in the Network Security category and very high in terms of ease of upgrade and VAR's ability to service the product. The winning products are: GFI MailArchiver, GFI MailEssentials, GFI EndPointSecurity, GFI WebMointor and GFI MAX, the latest offering from GFI specifically for VARs, MSPs and IT support companies.
	GFI WebMonitor 2009: effective and immediate results Italian website ISAserver.it endorses GFI WebMonitor 2009 as being a "rich and complete" solution with a thorough review of the product's installation process. ISAserver.it maintain that the software is easy to install and configure, to the point that, documentation, whilst available, is not even needed - ISAserver.it, June 2009
	GFI WebMonitor: comprehensive monitoring tool GFI WebMonitor installs directly on top of your existing ISA Server installation "adding much greater and simpler control of ingress and egress web traffic". Installation and deployment are simple thanks to the step by step wizard - BlogFoo, 2009
	GFI WebMonitor: one of the best monitoring tools GFI WebMonitor impresses Augusto Alvarez as "one of the best monitoring tools for bandwidth consumption" that is easy to configure and requires "minimum overhead in network connectivity" - Augusto Alvarez, 2009
	GFI WebMonitor for ISA Server receives four stars in a review in SC Magazine. The product is a comprehensive monitoring tool and is extremely useful to add features that are missing from Microsoft ISA Server. - SC Magazine, 2009
	GFI WebMonitor wins award in the Content Security category GFI WebMonitor™ has been selected the winner in the Content Security category of the ISAserver.org Readers’ Choice Awards, organized by the leading Microsoft ISA Server resource site. The award serves as a mark of excellence, providing the ultimate recognition from peers within the industry. - ISAserver.org, December 2008
	Web monitoring and anti-virus solution tops the Access Control category GFI WebMonitor™ has been selected as the best solution in the ISA Monitoring and Management category on ISAserver.org. - ISAserver.org, October 2008
	Network Product Guide Award for GFI WebMonitor GFI WebMonitor™ for ISA Server has been named the winner of the 2008 Best Products and Services Award in the web filtering category by Network Products Guide, a Silicon Valley Communications publication on technologies and solutions. - NetworkProductsGuide, August 2008
	Competent ISA add-in In a comparative review of Web Content Management in SC Magazine, GFI WebMonitor™ WebFilter Edition is given four stars out of five. The reviewer says that the product plugs right into ISA Server very easily and adds some nice filtering capability. He says it is “a competent add-in for MS ISA Server at a very good price”. - SC Magazine, April 2008

 

GFI WebMonitor FAQs:

What is the difference between the versions of GFI WebMonitor?
See the GFI WebMonitor features.

What types of authentication options are available in the standalone version of GFI WebMonitor?
See Getting Started Guide for information on authentication.

How are users counted in GFI WebMonitor?
Licensing is based on users when authentication is enabled or IP addresses if it is not.

How do we configure clients to use GFI WebMonitor as the proxy and how do we prevent them from bypassing it?
The user's Internet browser must be configured to use the GFI WebMonitor server as the proxy to enforce web filtering.  With Internet Explorer, this can be configured with Group Policy.  With other browsers, it is best to use the port blocking or traffic forwarding options found in section 2.2.4 of Getting Started Guide.

What type of reporting is available?
From within the product, the user has access to extensive real-time drill-down reporting/monitoring data such as the top policy breakers, hidden downloads and so on. In addition, all customers get access to the free GFI WebMonitor 2009 ReportPack which is a full-featured reporting companion to both editions of GFI WebMonitor 2009. It assists systems administrators in understanding what network users are up to on the Internet. Amidst other info, the reports show the browsing history including the most frequently accessed websites, bandwidth usage trends, and the number of viruses that were blocked by GFI WebMonitor 2009's anti-virus engines. See the GFI WebMonitor ReportPack area for example reports.

Which features are available in the Freeware version of GFI WebMonitor?
The Freeware version includes the ability to monitor the browser activity of your users and the ability to configure WebFilter or WebSecurity policies that control user activity is available in the licensed versions.

Documentation:

Download the GFI WebMonitor Data Sheet (PDF).