Drouillard & Associates, Inc. - Michigan Computer and Technology Consultants

Michigan Firewall & Content Filter Solution Providers

content filter Chances are good that at some point today, one of the users on your network will visit a web-site that'll do its best to slip spyware, a rootkit, or a trojan horse onto their machine. And, even though you might have signature-based anti-virus and anti-spyware tools installed, sooner or later, one of those web-sites will drive a proverbial truck loaded with pestilence through the latest unknown/unpatched browser security hole. It's not a matter of if, but when.
 

Schools, Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) certainly aren't immune to the serious damages caused by viruses, spyware, malware and lost data. In fact, these attacks can decimate a small business that doesn't have the resources to recover. Most business-oriented anti-virus, anti-spyware and storage solutions cater to big enterprises. Managers in schools, small and medium businesses can be overwhelmed by the complexity of the technologies and frustrated by the enormous time and resources required to deploy and manage them.

Networks require complete data protection solutions that are simple to use, and designed, priced and packaged to meet their unique business requirements. Without the right tools, you could face higher IT management costs, slower customer response times, more system downtime, and an inability to focus on running and growing your business.

A centrally managed firewall software and internet content filters should be an important part of your network's infrastructure. 

Why do I need a Content Filter and Firewall?

Policy Enforcement & Content Filter

A firewall provides the means for implementing and enforcing a network access policy. In effect, a firewall provides access control to users and services improving employee productivity. Thus, a network access policy can be enforced by a firewall, whereas without a firewall, such a policy depends entirely on the cooperation of users. 

Internet access has become a necessity for employees within the enterprise environment. Much of this access improves productivity by enabling cost effective access to Web-based applications and business partner extranets. The Web is also a tremendous tool for conducting research and tracking information for business purposes. Even for personal use, the Web can increase productivity by enabling employees to conduct banking and other consumer transactions without losing time leaving the office. Unfortunately, these productivity benefits can be outweighed by time wasting distractions. Furthermore, employee Web surfing exposes countless companies to security risks which ultimately cost billions of dollars annually. Criminal and other unscrupulous organizations now recognize Web vulnerabilities as an easy way to make money and they are doing so by taking advantage of serious flaws in Web browsing applications.

Our servers examine the actual content of pages based on many methods including phrase matching, PICS filtering and URL filtering. It does not purely filter based on a banned list of sites like lesser commercial filters.  Our servers are designed to be completely flexible and allows you to tailor the filtering to your exact needs. 

Reduce your legal risk by controlling your network users from accessing offensive content or downloading copyrighted material. 

Non-business bandwidth consumption is eliminated by restricting the downloading of executable, music, video and other files from sites not on the pre-approved list.

Controlled Access to Your Servers

A firewall can greatly improve network security and reduce risks to others servers on your network by filtering inherently insecure services. As a result, your servers are exposed to fewer risks, since only selected protocols will be able to pass through the firewall and redirected to servers you have selected.  This provides the benefit of preventing the services from being exploited by outside attackers, but at the same time permits the use of these services with greatly reduced risk to exploitation.

A firewall also provides the ability to control access to site systems. For example, some servers can be made reachable from outside networks, whereas others can be effectively sealed off from unwanted access. A firewall could prevent outside access to your network servers except for special cases such as mail or web servers.

Concentrated Security

A firewall can actually be less expensive for an organization in that all or most modified software and additional security software could be located on the firewall systems as opposed to being distributed on many of your PC's.  There are instances were firewall software on the client machines can cause problems to existing applications.

Logging and Statistics on Network Use &  Misuse

If all access to and from the Internet passes through a firewall, the firewall can log accesses and provide valuable statistics about network usage.  It is important to collect network usage statistics and evidence of probing for a number of reasons. Of primary importance is knowing whether the firewall is withstanding probes and attacks, and determining whether the controls on the firewall are adequate. Network usage statistics are also important as input into network requirements studies and risk analysis activities.

Proxy Servers

An on-site transparent proxy server can dramatically increases the speed at which frequently requested web pages and related content are accessed - your connection will actually "feel" faster. 


Our Firewall & Content Filters provide total data protection for your computers. You get a fully integrated solution that reduce risks, system downtime and IT management costs.

Contact us now to learn how D&A can protect you from a range of data-loss and business-interruption threats and help keep your business up, running and growing.


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Last modified: 01/01/09