Inappropriate Website Control

Note This feature is not included with all licenses. If you want to use it, you might need to customize your license.

With this basic form of website control, you can filter the web activity of users, based on 14 website categories. There is a default action for each category, but, if necessary, you can select a different action.

Users can be blocked from visiting restricted websites. An event is triggered that is shown to the user and sent to Sophos Enterprise Console.

Alternatively, users can be warned by means of a notification when visiting controlled websites; even if the user does not proceed, a warning event is triggered. If the user proceeds and views a site despite the warning, a second event is triggered and sent to Sophos Enterprise Console.

Note Although HTTP and HTTPS sites are both filtered in all supported web browsers, user notifications are different, depending on whether the URL is HTTP or HTTPS. With HTTP sites, users see notification pages for sites in categories set to Block or Warn. For HTTPS, users only see Block notifications, and they are displayed as a balloon tip in the Windows System Tray. HTTPS Warn actions are neither displayed to the user nor are they logged. Instead, users are allowed to continue to the requested page, and the event is logged as a Proceed in Sophos Enterprise Console.

If you select the Allow action for a website category, users can access all websites within this category, unless website exceptions are specified. Allow events are not logged when Inappropriate Website Control is selected.

Note Allowed sites are still scanned and assessed by Sophos Endpoint Security and Control's live URL-filtering (Web protection) feature.