URL filtering is defined as the ability of an organization’s IT and security departments to limit employees’ access to specific URLs by comparing web traffic and addresses against a database of blocked and restricted sites. This article explains the concept in detail and shares useful best practices for URL filtering in 2021.
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What Is URL Filtering in Data Security?
URL filtering is the ability of an organization’s security department to limit employees’ access to harmful URLs. This is done by comparing web traffic and addresses against a database of blocked and restricted sites that may be harmful to both the employees’ and the organization’s security.Â
URL Filtering
A uniform resource locator (URL) refers to a web address that precisely displays where a user is on the internet, specifying its location on a computer network. The main purpose of URL filtering is to fight off susceptible attacks on the internet and improve cybersecurity defenses. Every organization faces the threat of online attacks and needs to build a security wall to prevent various forms of malware, such as ransomware, spyware, and adware, from being installed on their devices or networks. The harm caused by these vicious infections can take a huge toll on the organization’s functioning.
URL filtering can be used to block access to websites or web pages that are known to contain malware and resort to phishing attempts, thereby greatly reducing the exposure to these infections. IT teams can carefully control internet access and block certain categories of web pages to safeguard their organization against online threats and build strong defenses to repel these attacks altogether.
URL Filtering
There is no doubt that the internet has now become an indispensable part of our lives. Although the internet is a golden source of knowledge and a hub for all the latest information we need, it is also an open field of opportunities for people with malicious intent to plan attacks against different organizations. News of data breaches and network attacks are not unheard of in today’s world. However, what most people forget to consider is how easily employees fall prey to phishing schemes and pave the way for attackers to gain access to sensitive information.
That is why implementing strict security practices is the need of the hour. More than ever before, organizations need to work on improving their network security aspects. Simply strengthening security training and drafting exhaustive policies are not enough. You need to go one step ahead and choose an apt security solution that works best in regard to your company’s needs.
URL filtering is one sure shot way to keep security threats at bay. It is among the most common security practices that restrict employees’ access to certain websites that can prove to be a major threat to the organization’s safety. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant seismic shift toward remote working has forced organizations to take a careful look at their security practices. In today’s world, where employees can work from anywhere, restrictions need to be even tighter.
URL filtering can be done by identifying a group of websites, either on a page-by-page basis or a category basis, wherein, all websites related to a particular category are blocked, such as entertainment, gambling, jobs/employment, news, social media, gaming, pornography, or known phishing sites. URL filters can also be used to block inappropriate website content being accessed through search engines and image searches done via Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
By limiting access to certain categories, URL filtering ensures that employees do not stumble upon malicious websites. It also prevents employees from accessing unproductive web pages that are not related to their job; sites with violent, objectionable, and illegal content; or sites associated with phishing schemes. This reduces the organization’s exposure to many security risks such as data loss or seizure, propagation of threats, malware, viruses, and even legal issues.
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Key Benefits for Enterprise Security
It’s pretty simple if you think of it. As a growing organization, the number of employees you bring on board is a lot, and so will be the number of employees surfing the internet on your company’s network. Having unrestricted network access could leave your employees vulnerable to various security risks, thereby increasing the probability of security breaches, data leaks, malware infestation, and various other threats that could cause your organization’s downfall.
If you’re still not sure, take a look at these five solid benefits of URL filtering.
URL Filtering Benefits
1. Provides airtight network security
URL filtering provides a super-tight layer of security by blocking access to malicious websites, hosted files, or any other sites that raise an alarm or pose a serious threat to your organization’s safety. The popularity of URL filtering tools and software will continue to rise owing to the growing sophistication of cyber attacks in recent times.
Employees need not necessarily be on an illegal or inappropriate website to become a victim of email spam, phishing attacks, and malware threats such as exploit kits. A tool used to exploit vulnerabilities in software applications, including web browsers, plugins, extensions, add-ons, and other apps, exploit kits are loaded onto websites that become a source for Trojans, malware, spyware, anonymizers, spam URLs, and other risks. The malware gets downloaded automatically when an employee lands on a malicious URL containing an exploit kit.
Although using a good antivirus solution ensures enough protection against exploit kits, it still takes time for the antivirus software to prevent phishing attacks. On the other hand, URL filtering is the best solution to ward off exploit kits by blocking access to all websites known to host them.
2. Shields against phishing attacks
Phishing attacks are one of the most common threats that organizations face in today’s day and age. Phishing is the practice of illegally acquiring sensitive information by impersonating a credible figure and deceiving employees into sharing critical details or obtaining their login credentials.
URL filtering provides a foolproof layer of protection against phishing by completely blocking access to malicious websites. Whenever an employee tries to visit a known malicious website or link sent to them via an email or social media post, they will immediately be redirected to a block screen and asked to return to safety.
3. Minimizes company liability
URL filtering protects an organization by restricting access to certain scandalous websites. Even with strict web protocols in place, some employees deliberately misuse the internet, download inappropriate content involving pornographic material or copyrighted content, or worse still, share offensive imagery through social pages, as such comprising your network and tarnishing your company’s image. URL filtering reduces the probability of such disasters and saves you from the hassles of liabilities and dealing with legal issues.
By continuously monitoring web usage and filtering internet access, you can prevent legal risks and the creation of a hostile working environment. This can be done by enforcing strict corporate policies and utilizing URL filters to restrict access to ‘not safe for work’ (NSFW) content, along with blocking illegal online activities at work such as file sharing via peer-to-peer sites (P2P) sites, many of which open the doors to grave cybersecurity threats.
4. Promotes productivity & employee efficiency
‘Cyberloafing’ is a unique term used to describe employees using the internet for non-work-related reasons during paid working hours. Managers find many of their employees often distracted, falling behind on work schedules, and being unproductive during peak work hours. Sometimes, employees are hooked onto entertainment sites, social media platforms, shopping portals, and news apps, all of which eat up a huge chunk of their productive time.
Not only do these websites derail employees from their work process, but they also pose a serious rise in exposure to malicious content. Organizations can utilize URL filters to their advantage by restricting access to distracting websites, helping prevent time theft, and improving employee productivity, thereby helping employees meet their targets on time and safeguarding the company against security risks.
5. Reduces strain on the company network
Cutting off employees from non-work-related websites is a huge benefit for enterprises trying to reduce the load on their network. Small businesses especially often struggle with bandwidth and connectivity issues. Continuous use of video streaming and gaming apps hinders employee productivity and efficiency and is also a huge strain on the network of a company.
The best way to deal with ‘bandwidth hoggers’ is by resorting to URL filtering. Blocking access to popular streaming media sites such as YouTube and Netflix ensures faster connection and good internet speed for everyone in the organization, which can be utilized for productive purposes.
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URL Filtering Process: 7 Key Steps
URL filtering is the process of blocking specific URLs from loading on your company’s network. It compares the URLs against a database of predefined URL categories or URL lists. Any user’s attempts to access a site will lead to an immediate corresponding action (permit or deny access). Anytime an employee wishes to visit a URL that is suspicious or unproductive, either by clicking on the link or manually entering the web address in a search engine, they will automatically be redirected to a page informing them that the said content is blocked or unsafe for viewing.
URL filtering can be enabled or deployed either through a local database or on the cloud. The most frequently accessed URLs are stored locally, whereas a master database is also available to support more URLs on the cloud if a specific URL is not found locally. This ensures maximum in-line performance and minimizes latency to a great extent.
URL databases are organized through various means, including URL categories, URL category groups, URL topics, URL blacklist, and whitelist. Search engines compare the URLs in HTTP and HTTPS against the defined URL categories, topics, or lists.
Let’s look at the URL filtering process in detail and understand all the important steps involved.
URL Filtering Process
Step 1 – Enable URL categorization
First, start by blocking or allowing traffic based on URL categories, including categories for malware or phishing sites.
Step 2 – Enable URL filter for policy reinforcement
For matching traffic based on a URL category for a specific policy rule to apply only to a few web traffic categories, simply add the category as match criteria.
Step 3 – Clearly determine allowed websites
To ensure URL filtering does not block the websites that are actually needed for work purposes, create a list of websites that can be accessed through a whitelist. A whitelist allows access to all work-related sites such as productivity tools, project management software, and workflows.
Step 4 – Enable user-defined categories for specific inclusions
User-defined categories refer to customized URL categories based on individual company policies that an enterprise may want to include.
Step 5 – Explicitly mention blocked websites
Use blacklists to clearly specify all websites with blocked access. A blacklist includes websites with prohibited access, such as unsafe or forbidden websites used during work hours.
Step 6 – Enable predefined categories of allowed & prohibited websites
A predefined category can include URL categories such as phishing, malware, gaming, shopping, or entertainment websites blocked in advance by URL filtering vendors and providers. Pre-defined URL categories help reduce security risks and monitor employee activities on the web that severely affect work productivity.
Step 7 – Enable refined web access
Enable URL categorization based on certain parameters such as time periods, remote access, or user identities. This means that access to particular websites will be given only for specific time periods, or to employees of a specific department, or for those employees working remotely.
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Top 8 Best Practices for URL Filtering in 2021
Even the most secure websites could conceal malicious threats. Cybercriminals and hackers today have become extremely subtle yet smarter than ever before. Threats imposed by accessing certain websites can be enough to leak valuable data assets, exploit vulnerabilities in employees’ browsers, and encrypt files to harm your organization. It is essential that advanced security solutions and policies that best fit your organization’s needs are used.
Here’s a list of the top eight best practices for URL filtering that you should be familiar with in 2021.
URL Filtering Best Practices
1. Draw up company policies
The first and foremost thing you should do is create a set of policies for web access across the organization and inform all the employees about the same. This involves a restriction on the use of illicit or illegal websites, imposing rules on email usage, preventing the downloading of questionable files, refraining from responding to unknown contacts, or restrictions on downloading unlicensed versions of software.
One of the most common ways malware makes its way into employees’ systems is by downloading unlicensed, third-party software or the use of cracked versions of software. Hence, it is crucial to lay down strict policies for your employees’ and organization’s safety and protection.
2. Instill awareness about security risks
Most often than not, employees become victims of phishing attempts while simply surfing the internet. Organizations need to ensure that their employees are made aware of the various security risks looming over the internet. For instance, IT teams must engage employees in knowledge transfer and security awareness training sessions, explaining company policies and data risks in detail.
IT teams can also create internal awareness campaigns by circulating an example of a fake phishing attempt over email and then doing a survey to verify how many employees actually recognized the threat and how many were trapped by the clickbait scheme.
3. Create customizations for URL filters
Although it is critical to block harmful websites for good, there should be some exceptions as well. For example, most organizations have company-wide policies to block job/employment sites like Monster and Indeed. However, these websites may be a requirement for employees working in the talent acquisition department.
Similarly, social media savviness is a valued skill for employees working in the digital marketing department. They require access to social media platforms for their everyday tasks and stay updated with the latest trends in the industry. Hence, imposing a blanket ban on social platforms could be tricky. For this reason, it makes sense to customize URL categories tailored to certain departments and user groups in your organization.
4. Identify websites & apps you want to allow
Despite having predefined categories of URL filters, it’s best to have clarity regarding the exact applications and websites that you want to allow for use across the organization. This step would involve creating rules for the same. It’s important to note that allowed websites and apps are not only the ones you need to provision for business purposes but also those applications that you might want to allow for personal use.
5. Monitor your employees’ web activities
Getting visibility into your employees’ web activities can help you figure out the most-used URL categories. As mentioned in the above example, putting a complete ban on social media websites, especially for digital teams, may result in them continuously raising a ticket with the IT department for providing access to these sites.
Instead of following this approach, you could monitor employees’ activities to plan out the most effective URL filtering policy that perfectly syncs with their scope of work and smoothly aligns with your organization’s safety requirements.
6. Block URLs of threat categories
In the war against data breaches and security risks, make sure that you block URLs of malicious and exploitative web content categories to protect your employees and the goodwill of your organization. You can create a rule that applies to blocking sites with non-trusted, questionable, or poor reputations.
7. Enable credential theft protection
Phishing attempts that impersonate a trustworthy figure and lure employees through clickbait schemes to access their credentials is another lethal attack that cybercriminals indulge in. For this, it is essential to turn on credential phishing campaign prevention for protection against corporate credential theft.
It’s important to note that your employees will still be able to use their corporate credentials for work-related purposes; however, they won’t be able to re-use the same credentials on non-work-related sites, thereby saving them from stepping into the trap of a phishing scheme.
8. Turn on selective SSL decryption
Use URL categories to phase in decryption, along with making certain decryption exceptions in the case of sensitive or personal information connected to privacy concerns, for example, financial or medical records. The websites you allow and the threats you block are just a part of the overall web traffic. There is still a lot of risky content out there that you need to block.
These can be categorized into high-, medium-, and low-risk URL categories. However, if you are unable to block high- and medium-risk URLs for business purposes in some cases, make sure that you regularly inspect, monitor, and limit employee interaction with these categories while still providing a good user experience.
Takeaway
URL filtering is a powerful mechanism to block access to malicious websites and is increasingly becoming one of the most preferred tools to leverage and ensure better organizational security. Implementing URL filtering in your organization is like moving a step closer toward building a safe and strong network.
From protecting different endpoint devices and fighting against cyber threats and attackers, URL filtering provides a full spectrum of legal, regulatory, and compliance benefits to organizations. It not only protects your employees’ safety but also boosts productivity and performance at the same time.
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