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There are billions of websites available on the internet, offering the most varied content and facilities. Knowing the whole universe is an unimaginable challenge for network administrators and security managers. Because of this, the number of companies offering electronic address content classification databases grows.
Through these databases, an administrator can more conveniently define their security policy by customizing the use of the internet according to the interest of the organization, industry or even people.
The importance of these categorized bases is especially to separate malicious sites that may at some point pose some risk to the organization. Even if a particular user does an action in an email, for example, the proxy would block it and prevent a contamination.
Therefore, the categorization bases offer a reduction in the complexity of access management (what can or cannot be accessed), increase the visibility of what type of access is consumed by the organization, and potentially increase the security of the environment.
Free url databases
Free bases can be a great start for businesses, but one must understand the technology used, otherwise, their use can generate more problems than solutions. It is common for solutions to import the contents of the databases to facilitate validations, if this process is not optimized, many hardware resources will be consumed, offering a slow experience.
It is common to find lists with certain pre-classified content on the internet, with incredible sizes. This is not necessarily good, even though one cannot rely on the assertiveness of these lists.
In this process, it is also important not to confuse the bases, or lists, from classified sites, with technology that will allow it to function in an integrated fashion with a proxy or similar purpose solution. It is essential that these databases offer some optimized utilization / validation mechanism, so that their evaluation is fast.
Therefore, downloading a number of lists from the internet and judging that the number of records will guarantee success in the application of controls is somewhat frivolous, since the reputation of the list can totally compromise the result by using some resource.
Some basic tests can be done, in order to validate the classification of some common websites, and other regionalized or local ones. This will give a basic idea of the quality of the list. The interesting thing is to verify in the solution, in view of the number of requisitions, how much is actually known by the list.
The free one may offer a wrong idea of ease or advantage, so when choosing a base that can be freely copied over the internet, check if it is appropriate to the profile of use of your business and region, it is common that the classification of these is more assertive in other countries.
Paid url bases
The fact that a category base is paid is far from ensuring efficiency, this should be tested and proven through use. However, having a company behind this process is an interesting indication.
Some companies have developed automated technologies to scan the internet and sort content. Even in the absence of classified addresses, the software automatically triggers the company and the URL becomes known quickly.
Another important aspect of paid bases is that they tend to have a more segmented and larger set of categories, allowing a more refined use of this type of control within companies.
Added to the assertiveness of the bases, which are much superior and even surprising, it has the technological part linked to optimization, which is much employed by these companies. It is possible to add many addresses to a base and consume few resources, making it easier to check in high volume environments.
Therefore, before deciding to use paid or free bases, evaluate other aspects besides price. Make sure the categories offered meet the expectation, whether the content is assertive and operates at the right speed for the business.
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