What are some secure web gateway secrets you need to know? How can knowing these secrets help you?
Secure Web Gateway Secrets You Need to Know
Today, there is various secure web gateway (SWG) secrets you need to know. Firstly, SWG provides organizations with protection from web-based threats such as spam, phishing, spyware, viruses, etc.
Secondly, SWG helps to control the content that is allowed to access your network. Thirdly, this gateway acts as a firewall to protect you from the Internet. Fourthly, it can be used as an intrusion prevention system (IPS) that can detect and block malicious traffic. Lastly, it is a critical component of most network security infrastructures.
For those who are not sure what SWG is, SWG is a point of entry into your network that prevents outside threats from entering your network. This gateway acts as a web proxy server and is used to monitor and analyze all web traffic that comes into the organization. It’s also used for logging HTTP requests and for analyzing content that is sent out.
Secure Web Gateway Features You Need to Know
SWG offers many security features such as:
- Session tracking. it tracks information such as IP address and user name;
- Secure internet connection. it establishes an encrypted connection between the SWG and the client computer;
- Web filtering. It restricts access to only authorized users;
- Transaction authentication. It confirms that a transaction request was initiated by the owner of an account;
- Personalized content. It also provides customized web pages for each user based on their preferences;
- Content caching. It stores frequently accessed content in the local cache which reduces bandwidth usage;
- URL filtering. It checks if the requested URL is legitimate or not;
- Denial of service (DOS). It then identifies and protects against DOS attacks by setting up rules for blocking specific IP addresses or ranges of IP addresses;
- Web server protection. This service also protects servers from unwanted traffic (denial of service attack) and worms;
- Access policy enforcement. This feature allows you to set different rules according to different users’ levels or departments;
- Logging. This feature then records all activity on the gateway which can be viewed later on at any time;
- HTTPS inspection. This service also requires secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS) connections before they are passed through the gateway;
- Encryption acceleration. This service increases encryption speed by using encryption acceleration hardware.
What Are Some Key SWG Components?
Any SWG implementation will contain several components. Firstly, a web application firewall (WAF) monitors all traffic between clients and servers using various protocols such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and more.
Then, the next one is a web security gateway (WESG) which is a firewall that monitors and controls traffic between servers and clients using SSL. Next, content filtering is an engine that examines search results from a database of websites and blacklists those that are identified as web risks.
Finally, an intrusion prevention system (IPS) inspects the content for possible threats. And if it finds any, it will stop the content from entering your network. So, what are you waiting for? Use SWG now.