Submitted by Edward Lansink – Blog: GFI Tech blog

GFI WebMonitor Freeware is a freeware web filtering and web security solution for ISA Server, ideal for SMBs. It lets administrators monitor what websites users are currently browsing and what files are being downloaded in real-time. Through user and site bandwidth monitoring features, the administrator has the ability to track download and upload traffic and the number of URL hits over time.

GFI WebMonitor Freeware

Rate this tool: (3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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Windows Firewall was introduced with XP, but only the version for Windows Vista was powerful enough to replace third party desktop firewalls. Actually, Vista’s firewall is better than many of the personal firewalls I have ever seen. Compared to these enhancements, Windows 7 only has a tiny improvement to offer. However, in some environments, it might turn out to be very useful.

You probably know that Windows distinguishes between Public, Home, and Work networks. Whenever you connect to a new network, Windows will ask what type of network it is. Each network has its own firewall profile, which allows you to configure different firewall rules depending on the security requirements of the user’s locations. You can use the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security’s snap-in filter to display only rules for specific locations. The corresponding firewall rule sets are Public (Public), Private (Home / Work), and Domain (when a domain-joined workstation detects  a domain controller) (see comment below).

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Microsoft acquired Whale Communications in 2006. Its SLL-based VPN appliance became Intelligent Application Gateway (IAG) 2007. Wikipedia gives a good overview of this product. Basically, it is a Web application firewall and endpoint security management solution offering more sophisticated features than the ISA Server. According to Microsoft, the new features of IAG 2007 SP2 are simplified deployment, interoperability for environments not running Windows, enhanced application support, improved user experience, and improved performance. You can download IAG 2007 SP2 or try it in a virtual machine.

• How to enable Remote Desktop on remote computers through remote registry. http://snurl.com/2c2w0 #
• VMware Workstation 6.0.4 officially supports Vista SP1. I am using 6.0 and never experienced problems with Vista SP1. http://snurl.com/2c2vg #
• My DSL modem is broken and so I was forced to use my Windows Mobile toy as modem for my laptop. Setup costed me less than a minute. Cool! #
• Lukas Beeler blogs about his first impressions of Windows Small Business Server 2008 RC0. http://snurl.com/2br3d #

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On Tuesday, Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 will be available thru Automatic Update. I recommend waiting to deploy it for some time. Recently, we updated a machine running ISA Server 2004 with SP2. This improved significantly the security of Microsoft’s firewall since all traffic was blocked after the update. Okay, the disadvantage was that the computers behind ISA were not able anymore to access the Internet.

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Tom Shinder has a detailed article about the new features of Service Pack 3 for ISA Server 2004, Microsoft’s gateway firewall. Some of them are really quite useful.

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Today, I played a little with the new features of Windows Firewall. If you are familiar with the desktop firewall in Windows Vista, you already know the most important new features. There are, however, some server-related peculiarities.

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Sometime ago there was a debate on 4sysops about the use of outbound filtering for personal firewalls. Some argued that once malware got started on the desktop, it is already too late to stop it with a personal firewall. I recently tested the outbound filter of Vista’s firewall. In my view, it makes sense for standard users to use it, but not, probably, for administrators.

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Just saw it at Microsoft’s Download Center. A 180 day trial version of ISA Server 2006 final is now ready for download. As with former versions there is a Standard Edition and an Enterprise Edition. I already played with the beta version a while ago. My review is long overdue. I hope I will find some time to have a closer look soon.

Marius Ducea discussed three ways how to block brute force attacks under Linux using iptables, PAM and fail2ban. All three posts are quite detailed and well written.

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This is what Microsoft says about ISA Server 2004: ISA Server 2004 does not demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to provide solutions that maximize customer security and productivity. ISA Server 2004 does not provide a comprehensive set of Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services publishing tools, streamlined security and connectivity for branch offices, and an expanded array of OEM appliance offerings.

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There is an on going debate [1] [2] ever since Microsoft announced that outbound filtering in Windows Vista’s firewall will be turned off by default. Obviously, Microsoft again valued usability above security. Whereas I understand it in this context, I was a bit surprised how Microsoft staff justified this move.

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I am planning to write an article about ISA Server 2006 for a computer magazine The testing will be documented in this blog. I had written an article about the first version, ISA Server 2000, and also about ISA Server 2004. ISA Server 2000 didn’t convince me, especially the user interface. ISA Server 2004 certainly was a major improvement. We are using it now as a firewall and will soon install two ISA Servers as web proxies.

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