Bloxx Builds Web-Filtering Portfolio

Company:

Headquarters: Burlington, Mass.

Technology Sector: Security

Key Product: Bloxx Tru-View Technology Web-filtering appliance

Year Founded: 1999

Number of Channel Partners: 180 worldwide

Ideal Channel Partner: SMB- or enterprise-focused partners

Why You Should Care: Bloxx's third-generation Web filter offers a realtime scanning engine designed to block access to malicious sites and give administrators a wide-open view of employees' online behavior.

The Lowdown: With the copious amount of Trojans, botnets and other malicious code designed to evade security detection, having a good Web filter has become a key to any solid IT security solution.

But what Bloxx offers is not your mama's Web filter. Using what it calls third-generation

technology, the vendor's patented Tru-View Technology Web filtering doesn't just rely on URL databases for whitelisting or blacklisting or keyword filtering. "That only addresses the smallest portion of Web sites that are out there on the Internet," said Sean Langan, Bloxx senior technical specialist for North America.

Instead, Bloxx's Tru-View Technology filters Web sites with a contextual scanning engine designed to analyze, categorize and filter Web pages in realtime with multitiered filtering algorithms. "That's the secret sauce," Langan added.

Altogether, every Bloxx unit features Web filtering, IM and peer-to-peer blocking, file download management, proxy and cache capabilities and malware and anonymous proxy blocking. However, Langan said that one of the most attractive features is the integrated reporting tool, which lets users pull more than 120 types of reports, drilling down into everything from "Top Blocked Groups and Users" to "Most Popular Categories" with realtime monitoring capabilities.

Bloxx recently expanded its channel strategy by adding Bell Micro as a North American distribution partner. The vendor's Tru-View Technology portfolio appeals to a broad spectrum of reseller partners, from those working with public-sector schools and hospitals to corporate-focused solution providers, Langan said. The Web filter scales from 50-seat SMBs to global enterprise environments, fit for any organization that wants greater transparency of employees' Web-related activities while preventing access to malicious Web sites hosted by anonymous proxies, Langan said.

"Web proxies are scary because kids or employees, anybody with 10 minutes of spare time, can set up an anonymous proxy," Langan said. "It's a huge security vulnerability. If a user is able to access an anonymous proxy site, they've effectively bypassed your Web-filtering solution."