Understanding SWG Cyber Security and How It Protects Your Business From Cyber Threats

 

A secure web gateway (SWG) sits between the internet and enterprise users to filter out bad domains. It lists allowed sites and security policies to differentiate good traffic from bad. SWGs can also decrypt HTTPS traffic to scan for malware. This can help prevent data loss and ensure your network remains secure.

Threat Prevention

There are a wide variety of cyber threats that can affect your business. These include hackers, ransomware, insider threats, and more. These attacks can affect any company, from government organizations to educational and healthcare institutions to banks and law firms. The key to protecting your business from cyber threats is threat prevention. This is where SWG cyber comes in. SWG cyber is a security tool that inspects all network traffic in real-time to block potential threats and protect your organization from malware, spyware, phishing, and other online threats. It also has access control features that restrict internet and website access at certain times, by role, or by content type.

URL Filtering: SWG uses extensive databases of web categories to allow or block content based on corporate policies, including sites known to be malicious and of poor reputation. This helps prevent employees from accessing non-work-related websites that may pose a risk to the organization, such as pornography, gambling, or adult content.

Malware Detection: SWGs compare code in incoming traffic to malware codes to identify and block any threatening or malicious data. This allows a more efficient way to protect the network from malicious and suspicious activities. Compared to a firewall, SWG Cyber can provide more visibility and control over web traffic, allowing security teams to enforce policy compliance more easily. This means that security teams can reduce risk, avoid costly fines and increase the productivity of their teams.

SSL/TLS Decryption

Encryption is a vital security technology that protects sensitive information as it travels over the internet. It also prevents malicious hackers from eavesdropping or tampering with communication. When a website requests data from another site using SSL, the web browser performs a handshake to establish encryption. This creates private and shared session keys for the server to use for the encrypted connection. The server and client can then communicate over HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) and validate their identity with a lock icon in the browser address bar. However, it isn’t just about protecting data — there are many other ways SSL/TLS decryption helps protect your business from cyber threats. For example, it enables companies to better detect network threats earlier in an attack campaign. It improves the mean time of the response by providing critical context for rapid detection, scoping, and investigation of attacks. It also helps organizations thwart cyber criminals using encryption to hide command-and-control traffic and cloak malware from exfiltration by malware scanners. It prevents companies from being flagged by Google search engines as sites without encryption. It also protects customers from malicious sites that use certificates easily obtained on the dark web.

URL Filtering

The first line of defense against cyber threats is URL filtering, which blocks access to websites known to contain malware. This helps prevent infection from ransomware, spyware, and adware, which can be highly detrimental to organizations. URL filtering involves categorizing web content by topic; each topic is blocked or allowed. This system was developed mainly for productivity purposes, allowing companies to secure specific sites that were unsuitable for work or designed for entertainment, such as gambling and pornographic websites. A traditional URL filtering solution uses a URL reputation database to identify malicious web pages. More advanced solutions also combine machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. Another critical benefit of URL filtering is a granular filtering feature. Firms should block distracting sections of a news website while allowing employees to read the financial page. This can drastically reduce bandwidth consumption and data latency issues.

In addition, URL filtering can help increase corporate security by disallowing access to dangerous or inappropriate websites and reducing the risk of employee exposure to malicious code and spyware, phishing schemes, and whaling attacks. This helps to boost worker productivity and improves regulatory compliance. The URL filtering process also allows administrators to set policies that allow or block traffic based on specific categories, such as known malicious or phishing websites. This can be done on a per-page basis or by sort.

Malware Detection

Malware is a term for any program or file that’s designed to harm computers, devices, or data. Malware can be viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, and ransomware. Cyber attacks are a growing threat to everyone, from small businesses to large corporations. They can cause financial losses, damage a company’s reputation and lead to negative consequences. One of the biggest threats to businesses comes from malware. These programs are designed for compromising computer security, allowing criminals to access personal information, steal money or commit identity theft. The best malware detection tools will enable you to detect malware before it can affect your network. These programs also offer malware protection against new and evolving threats. A good SWG will monitor web traffic 24/7 to help prevent risks and keep your data safe. It will also integrate with other security tools to maximize your investment. SWG solutions are essential in modern businesses, as more employees work remotely, and unsecured Wi-Fi settings can transmit sensitive data unencrypted. This is especially important for cloud-based systems and websites. The key to maximizing your malware detection capabilities lies in the quality of the data that powers it. The best SWGs combine premium, high-volume URL databases, content classification services, and phishing and malicious detection threat feeds to deliver full-path, comprehensive threat protection.