Full Web Control
If you have a Sophos Web Appliance, Sophos Management Appliance, or Sophos UTM appliance (version 9.2 or later) you can distribute an appliance-based policy to your users by way of Sophos Enterprise Console.
Endpoint computers communicate with Sophos Enterprise Console in the same way as when the Inappropriate Website Control policy is selected, but the web-filtering rules and web activity logs are synchronized with the appliance that you specify. The policy is stored on endpoint computers and applied, based on the latest Sophos data.
Users are blocked, warned or allowed, according to the web control policy. You can view user activity data using the Reports and Search features on the Web Appliance or Management Appliance, or Logging & Reporting > Web Protection option on the UTM appliance. Web control events are all recorded on the appliance; however, sites scanned and assessed by Sophos Endpoint Security and Control's live URL-filtering (Web protection) are recorded as web events in Sophos Enterprise Console.
UTM appliance uses a central cloud-based service called Sophos LiveConnect for protecting and monitoring endpoint computers. LiveConnect allows you to always manage all of your endpoints, whether they are on your local network, at remote sites, or with traveling users—policy updates are distributed to users, and reporting data from endpoint computers is uploaded, even when users are not connected from within the network.
When using Management Appliance or Web Appliance, endpoints can communicate with the appliance either directly or through Sophos LiveConnect.
With Full Web Control selected, a full-featured policy takes effect. Full Web Control offers the following benefits over basic web control, depending on the appliance you use:
- Users are warned or blocked, based on over 50 categories of URLs.
- Differentiated “Special Hours” policies can be applied.
- Numerous additional policies can be used as per-user or per-group exceptions to the default and Special Hours policies.
- Detailed logs and reports are available on the Sophos Web Appliance, Security Management Appliance, or UTM appliance.
- LiveConnect allows distribution of policy updates and uploading of report data, even when users connect remotely.
- Users can submit feedback regarding the handling of blocked URLs.
- Customized notification pages that include your logo, and text that is specific to your organization, can be displayed to users. For more information, see the Sophos Web Appliance documentation.
- Users are automatically restricted from browsing to inappropriate sites from within popular search engines when SafeSearch is enabled.
For more information on configuring a full Web Appliance policy, see the Sophos Web Appliance documentation available at http://wsa.sophos.com/docs/wsa/.
The UTM appliance documentation is available at http://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/documentation/sophos-utm.aspx.