Review: NetOp Offers Precision Filtering With An Intelligent Twist

With security, it is rarely 'what you see is what you get.' Instead, it is usually what you don't see that creates the problem. Take for example content filtering; the idea behind the technology is to prevent users from accessing unauthorized Web sites, primarily defined by corporate policy and not security practices.

Netfilter from NetOp aims to take policy-driven filtering to the next level by filtering out those Web pages that deliver hidden malware. Netfilter combines several technology elements to block unwanted browser content and offers granular control to administrators to enforce browsing policies.

One of the biggest problems with filtering technology is that most Web filters rely on a list of Web sites to block or allownot the actual content of the Web page. That is one area in which Netfilter drastically differs from the competition. The product combines five different technologies into a single content-scanning engine to guarantee accuracy. VARs will find an image analysis tool that identifies offensive content by dissecting the image-to-text ratio, along with analysis to block offensive or inappropriate content. By examining a range of features in an image such as shape, color and other details, Netfilter correctly blocks unwanted images while non-offensive images are allowed. The product also employs realtime text analysis and supports many languages, including English, Spanish, German, French and the Nordic languages. Individual words as well as sentences and page setup are analyzed for maximum precision. The product also leverages PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) labels to further identify content. Further filtering precision comes from behavior analysis, which uses historical behavior of the individual user to determine if browsing does not fit the individual's browsing profile. Filtering capabilities are driven by the product's artificial intelligence engine, which accurately distinguishes between the different categories and becomes more accurate over time. Those features enable NetOp Netfilter to analyze Web content in realtime without consulting a blacklist of disallowed pages. By using a dynamic engine, Netfilter can block existing Web content and automatically adapt to cope with new threatsall without requiring constant updates or white- and blacklist controls.