Is it for me?

Inappropriate use of ‘social networking’ cost UK business an estimated 6.5bn in 2008. This service enables you to keep a check on your network’s Internet usage to enhance security & productivity. Many businesses consider it important to exercise some control over their Internet traffic, if only to reduce the time wasted by staff on FaceBook. The headline figure of 6.5bn (source: Global Secure Systems / Infosecurity Europe) is just an estimate, and probably wrong. But it’s in the same ball-park as other estimates (Workplace Law estimate 130m per day), and gives some idea of the scale of the problem.

There is also a legal dimension to this: employees accessing pornography may result in accusations of harassment, and could leave illegal material on your computers. Either way you have to be seen to be taking steps to prevent such misuse of your systems.

By deploying a system that monitors all website requests leaving on your Internet link, a customer can see statistics on the sites visited, time on-site and many other details. If required certain sites can be blocked, either by name or by type - for instance you can block eBay by name, or block access to all auction type sites.

As an additional feature, the system will warn of Internet access patterns characteristic of certain types of virus infection, especially the “Confiker” worm as it tries to ‘phone home’.

It is important to note that this system applies uniformly to all the computers on your network, and you cannot tell which PC visited which site (or is infected). This helps defend against the charge that you are spying on employees’ activities, but means you will have to do some more detective work to track down the infected computer.

How does it work?

Installation: Using this service requires no software to be installed on any of your systems. There is a configuration change to be made to some (or all) of your systems, which is easily reversible if you decide to discontinue with the service.

Infection warning: Once setup the system immediately starts monitoring for the tell-tale traffic from the “Confiker” family of worms. Should one of the systems on your network display the symptoms an alert is posted.

Access restrictions: You can now choose the the restrictions you wish to place on your network traffic. The system has access to a comprehensive list of sites maintained by Kaspersky (the famous IT security company), and it presents this as a menu of pre-defined “levels” (below left). Or you can dive into “Custom” (below right) and build your own list. Finally you can block individual sites if you require.

Usage reports: statistics from your web traffic are gathered and presented as graphical reports. This is invaluable information to help with balancing traffic and resources. An example is shown below.

Additional benefits: By using a high-performance directory service (rather than the one provided by your ISP) you should benefit from faster & more reliable access to sites.

What do I get? Hazmar will operate the service as follows:

• Warning of Confiker infection ASAP
• Configuration of restriction list (with on-going changes as required).
• Monthly basic stats report (PDF by email)
• Support & advice

What do I do next? Contact us, and we will get things moving!

Should I back up?

Backup is a major issue. Businesses have long known this, but the rise of digital entertainment makes it important for private individuals too. Regular backups are pretty easy - the availability of large, cheap USB hard drives has removed much of the cost and complexity of old. However, this doesn’t solve the problem entirely. You still have to implement a regime to exchange your backup media regularly and (more importantly), in order to be secure, your backup needs to be stored off site - this is a requirement of many insurance policies.

What is it?

On-line backup uses your Internet connection to back up selected files to a secure fileserver somewhere in cyberspace. Assuming that you have chosen a supplier well, your data will be managed in a secure & reliable manner, and be available to you at the click of a mouse. The key to the success of this type of system is the software used to transfer the files. In order to do the job in a reasonable time, this software will use byte-level comparison to ensure that only the minimum amount of data is transferred: consistent with a complete backup set of course! The first time the system runs the backup will take some considerable time - subsequent backups will be surprisingly fast. Hazmar favours the system offered by Carbonite, and this description will be based on their product: there are others available.

Backup is automatic, and runs on a schedule. As long as the relevant computer is on, and the Internet connection is up, the backup happens without user intervention. It is smart enough to limit it’s impact on your Internet connection to a manageable amount, and can be instructed to avoid certain time of day.

Recovery is very comprehensive. You can recover any backed-up file at any time. In addition, you can recover any file to any previous version from historical backups.

What does it cost?

As with many offerings these days Carbonite, in conjunction with AVG, offer a free “taster” version. This is limited to 2Gb, and cannot backup network drives. This is plenty to backup emails, passwords & key documents. However, once you start with digital media, you will need more. The unlimited version costs around $50 per year, which is very good value for such a comprehensive solution.

Please note that the software can only be installed on systems running Windows XP or Vista (32 or 64 bit). All other operating systems are unsupported. If you have an unsupported operating system then you can use one of the competing products.

Is it secure?

Yes, really secure. The data is encrypted using the Blowfish system, and transmitted to the remote server using SSL. It doesn’t get much better than that. The down side is that if you loose your password it’s a lot of trouble getting your data back!

What do I do to get started?

You can set it up yourself (it’s not too tricky) or contact us and we’ll come and do it for you. Once it’s running your backup looks just like any other drive on the system: it really is that simple!