Spyware Protection

Astaro provides Spyware Protection by blocking web pages and software downloads from web sites that contain spyware or adware. The solution not only protects against infection of computers within the enterprise network, but also intercepts and blocks spyware communication from already infected computers to spyware web sites on the Internet.

What is spyware and why is it harmful?
Spyware is software that gathers information about a computer user and his or her Web surfing habits without the user's explicit knowledge or consent and reports this information over the Internet. This is harmful to the user and to the organization as it allows for information leakage and violation of privacy and, in worst-case scenario, record every key stroke, eventually culmination in password cracking. It also decreases productivity, as PC users are constantly interrupted by pop-ups and other ads.

Perimeter Approach
Astaro's security technology as incorporated within Astaro Security Gateway software and Astaro Security Gateway appliances uses a server/gateway side approach in order to minimize maintenance and to provide full protection from user tracking threats.

To provide full spyware protection the following functionality is included:

• Detection of URLs from which spyware is originated and blocking of any attempts to infect computers within the enterprise network

• Interception and blocking of spyware communication from already infected computers while trying to send tracking information to the Internet

Identifying malicious URLs
In order to inspect malicious HTTP traffic which might relate to spyware Astaro makes heavy use of a url (content) filtering database with more than 2.6 billion Web pages and images classified into 60 categories. This database is the largest and most up-to-date database of its kind. By using fully automated web crawlers more than 120 million web pages are added to the database each month.

The highly sophisticated mechanisms used to categorize this content are also able to detect URLs related to spyware. A specific Spyware-category is now be used to accurately identify URLs of spyware sources or servers

Block Spyware infection and communication
By using this web content database, Astaro's Spyware Protection solution is now able to check if the URL that is requested by the browser is a spyware URL (including Web Bug URLs), and if the server to which data is being sent is in fact a spyware server. It can then block both Spyware infection as well as spyware communication.

Block Spyware installation
In addition to blocking spyware related URLs Astaro's solution provides the option to filter embedded objects that might be included within so called drive-by-downloads. By activating this option all embedded objects like ActiveX Controls, Java, Flash or others would be removed from HTTP traffic, having the effect of protecting against installation of any active components on a user's desktop.

This functionality is part of Astaro's Content Filtering capabilities which are applicable to any type of HTTP traffic.

Managing spyware protection
A huge advantage of Astaro's approach is the small administrative effort that has to be made to provide reasonable spyware protection at a low cost. No applications need to be installed on hundreds or thousands of client PCs. No applications need to be configured on those PCs. And there is no need to check if spyware patterns have been updated recently on those PCs.