Capturing Barracuda Web Filter Activity in Reports

Transcription

1 Capturing Barracuda Web Filter Activity in Reports IT administrators require detailed information about Internet usage on the network. This helps budget computing resources and ensure adherence to corporate policies. In addition to its powerful Web filtering and malware protection capabilities, the Barracuda Web Filter allows administrators to generate more than 35 different reports on Internet activity. Reports can be generated on users Web browsing activity, by domains and content categories, by time spent online or by bandwidth consumption. Having a comprehensive, flexible and easy-to-use native reporting engine enables the Barracuda Web Filter to offer a fully integrated solution. Generating reports is simple. Select the time period, report type and format, and then generate the reports or schedule for automatic delivery. Additional filters can be applied to generate reports for a specific user/group, domain or category. Comprehensive Reports on all aspects of monitored online activity Reports can be anchored on User Activity, Domains, Categories or Action Web requests, bandwidth usage, policy violations and spyware activity presented in tabular and graphical form Applicable to IT Administrators, HR departments, executive management and other compliance functions Flexible Generate one-time reports or schedule automatic delivery on a daily, weekly or monthly basis HTML, PDF, Text or CSV formats Optional filtering by Source (Name, IP or User Group) of traffic or by Destination (Domain, Category) The Barracuda Web Filter also provides Content and Application Logs to track online activity in real-time Web traffic Syslog messages are recorded to a text file stored on the Barracuda Web Filter that can be exported Easy to Use Native reporting engine does not require separate clients or database management Simple and intuitive Web user interfaceweb filtering reports are typically used by human resources, information technology, executive management or other equivalent overseeing functions within an organization to regulate Internet access, maintain network security and improve productivity. Business Drivers for Reporting Network administrators are concerned with monitoring and optimizing computing and bandwidth resources across the organization. The vulnerability of the network to security risks is also a major concern. An administrator could be interested in monitoring how bandwidth is utilized, daily Internet usage patterns, infection activity and efficiency of Web filtering systems. On the other hand, human resources administrators are concerned with regulating Internet activity across the organization to minimize inappropriate content and loss of productivity. Human resources are often tasked to ensure users are protected against security risks and inadvertent misuse. The Barracuda Web Filter reports provide several views of user Internet activity. The reports can be generated per user, per client or per group, or aggregated across all users. Through these granular reports, administrators can monitor a variety of parameters such as Web usage patterns, bandwidth consumption and infection activity. The wide variety of reports provided by the Barracuda Web Filter is designed to satisfy the all aspects of an organization s monitoring requirements. 1

2 Web Usage by Requests Content filtering activity is one of the most common reports used to drill into an organization s overall Web activity. Administrators can identify domains or categories most often blocked and the type and frequency of actions taken by the Barracuda Web Filter when enforcing Internet access policy. These reports are useful to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the content and application filtering engines. Report types include: Top Blocked Domains Top Warned Domains Top Blocked Categories Top Warned Categories List of domains most often blocked and the number of blocked requests. Domains very frequently blocked could indicate an overly restrictive filtering policy. List of domains with the most warnings issued and the number of corresponding requests. This report could indicate common policy violations. List of commonly blocked content categories and the number of blocked requests. List of categories with the most warnings issued and the number of corresponding requests. A major issue facing organizations and educational institutions today is the increasing level of leisure browsing from within the workplace. This can lead to a loss of productivity or even risk legal action from exposing users to objectionable content. The latter concern is particularly applicable to educational institutions who are legally obligated to regulate Internet access to inappropriate sites. The Barracuda Web Filter includes several reports for administrators to continuously monitor Internet activity for inappropriate usage, then prevent and correct such usage by configuring appropriate policies. These reports can be combined with other reports to get a detailed look at user Internet activity. For example, a school administrator could identify students who frequently access blocked content and also the Web site categories that these users frequent. Some applicable report types are: Top Users by Requests Top Monitored Users by Requests Top Blocked Users Top Warned Users List of top users ranked by the total number of Web requests made within a specified time period. List of top users ranked by the number of monitored Web requests. List of users who made the most requests to blocked content within a specified time period. This report is very commonly used to identify users who violate policy. List of users who made the most requests to warned content within a specified time period. While designing network usage policy, administrators have to often strike a balance between regulating access while not being overly restrictive. To do this, it is useful to understand which domains or categories are most popular among the users and then design policy to provide appropriate levels of access. For example, a network administrator could estimate the bandwidth usage is at a peak during certain hours and apply a restrictive policy but allow access to some popular leisure sites, like personal during off-peak hours. The following Barracuda Web Filter reports allow administrators to identify the most popular online content within their users: Top Web Sites by Requests Top Web Sites by Time Spent Top Categories by Requests Top Monitored Domains by Requests Top Monitored Categories by Requests List of Web sites ranked by the number of requests made. For each Web site, provide a list of users who made requests. List of the top Web sites ranked by the time spent by users. For each Web site, the report provides a list of users who made requests, identified host, number of requests and the start and end time for each browsing session. List of the top content categories ranked by the number of requests made. List of the top monitored domains ranked by the number of requests made. List of the top monitored categories ranked by the number of requests made. 2

3 Web Usage by Time The Barracuda Web Filter includes detailed Time Based reports. These reports provide information on users, domains and categories ranked by total time spent browsing as well as the time spent on individual browsing sessions. In general, a browsing session is considered terminated when there is no user activity for 5 minutes. Top Users by Time Spent Top Users by Session Time Top Web Sites by Time Spent Top Web Sites by Session Time Top Categories by Time Spent Top Categories by Session Time Sessions by Domain Sessions by Dategory List of the top users ranked by total time spent browsing. List of the top users ranked by individual browsing sessions. A browsing session ends when there is no activity for 5 minutes. List of the top domains ranked by the total browsing time spent on each domain. List of the top domains ranked by individual browsing sessions. List of the top content categories ranked by the total time spent browsing. List of the top content categories ranked by individual browsing sessions. Browsing session breakdown per domain requested. Browsing session breakdown by content category. Quality of Service Quality of Service is generally a function of how bandwidth is utilized across all Internet users in the organization. By reporting on bandwidth utilization ranked by Web requests for users, domains and categories, the Barracuda Web Filter makes it easy to monitor and tune the network as well as design policies to optimize resource usage and allocation. For example, an administrator can identify Web sites that consume the most bandwidth and regulate access to them if there is no adverse impact on overall productivity. Some applicable report types are: Top Web Sites by Bandwidth Top Monitored Domains by Bandwidth Top Monitored Categories by Bandwidth Top Users by Bandwidth Top Monitored Users by Bandwidth List of requested domains ranked by bandwidth consumed within a specified time period. The Barracuda Web Filter allows administrators to monitor traffic to Web sites rather than allow unrestricted access or completely block access. Monitoring allows administrators to flag policy violations without actually blocking access. This report provides a list of monitored domains ranked by most bandwidth consumed within a specified time period. List of content categories of monitored domains ranked by most bandwidth consumed. List of top users ranked by total number of Web requests made within a specified time period. List of top users ranked by bandwidth consumed for monitored Web requests. 3

4 Trends Trend reports provide details on Internet traffic patterns allowing network administrators to profile Internet activity trends. By looking at the trends, administrations can appropriately allocate bandwidth and other resources as well as configure policies to maintain network usage within acceptable limits. For example, identifying peak Internet usage periods can help an administrator budget bandwidth and other resource requirements. Some applicable report types are: Bandwidth by Hour Bandwidth by Time of Day Requests by Hour Line graphs detailing the bandwidth consumed in hourly intervals over a specified time period. Line graph detailing the bandwidth consumed on an hourly basis in a 24 hour period. Line graphs detailing the number of Web requests made in hourly intervals over a specified time period. Requests by Time of Day Line graph detailing the number of Web requests made on an hourly basis in a 24 hour period. Actions by Hour Actions by Time of Day Spyware Infection Activity List of the number and types of actions taken by the policy and filtering engines over a specified time period. You can find the number of block, allow, warn or monitoring actions taken in hourly intervals over the specified time period. List of the number and types of actions taken by the policy and filtering engines in a 24-hour period. You can find the number of block, allow, warn or monitoring actions taken in hourly intervals during the 24 hour period. A major concern for network administrators is network security and protection from Web-based malware attacks. The Barracuda Web Filter prevents harmful downloads from the Internet as well as detects spyware activity from infected client machines. Spyware Infection Activity reports detail any detected spyware infections on client computers as well as harmful downloads that were prevented by the Barracuda Web Filter. Using these reports, network administrators can monitor the health of their network, detect vulnerabilities early and design preventive and corrective measures. Some applicable report types are: Top Users by Spyware Requests Infection Activity Top Infected clients List of users who made the most number of requests for content with potential to cause malware infections. Details aggregated infection activity. Identifies client computers with spyware infections. Summary Reports To summarize information provided in the detailed reports, the Barracuda Web Filter provides aggregated views of user and domain activity. The following report types provide summary statistics typically useful in obtaining a snapshot of user Internet activity: Requests by User Domains by User User Report User Activity Lists all Web sites visited by a user in chronological order. Aggregated report detailing domains visited, number of requests and bandwidth. Summary statistics for the top Web sites by requests, requests by hour, bandwidth by hour and top domains by bandwidth. Summary of user activity showing the number of requests, allowed requests, blocked requests and time last request was made for users logged through the Barracuda Web Filter. 4

5 Barracuda Web Filter: Report Comparison Information Filtering Options Web Usage by Requests Top Blocked Domains Top Warned Domains Top Blocked Categories Top Warned Categories Top Blocked Users Top Warned Users Top Users by Requests Top Monitored Users by Requests Top Web sites by Requests Top Web sites by Time Spent Top Categories by Requests Top Monitored Domains by Requests Top Monitored Categories by Requests Web Usage by Time Top Users by Time Spent Top Users by Session Time Top Web Sites by Time Spent Top Web Sites by Session Time Top Categories by Time Spent Top Categories by Session Time Sessions by Domain Sessions by Category Quality of Service Top Web sites by Bandwidth Top Monitored Domains by Bandwidth Top Monitored Categories by Bandwidth Top Categories by Bandwidth Top Users by Bandwidth Top Monitored Users by Bandwidth Trends Bandwidth by hour Bandwidth by Time of Day Requests by Hour Requests by Time of Day Actions by Hour Actions by Time of Day Spyware Infection Activity Top Users by Spyware Requests Infection Activity Top Infected Clients Summary Reports User Report User Activity Requests by User Domains by User Blocked domains requested most often Warned domains requested most often Blocked Content Categories requested most often Warned Content Categories requested most often Users that made the most requests to blocked content Users that received the most warnings Users that made the most number of Web requests Users that made the most number of Monitored Requests Domains requested most often Domains on which users spent the most time browsing Content Categories requested most often Monitored Domains requested most often Monitored Content Categories of domains that requested most often Users spending most time overall Users with the longest browsing sessions Web sites on which most time is spent overall Web sites with longest browsing sessions Categories on which most time is spent overall Categories with the longest browsing sessions Session breakdown by domains Session breakdown by Category Web sites that consumed the most Bandwidth Monitored Domains that consumed the most Bandwidth Monitored Content Categories that consumed the most Bandwidth Content Categories that consumed the most Bandwidth Users that consumed the most bandwidth Users that made Monitored Requests that consumed the most Bandwidth Bandwidth usage in hourly intervals over the reporting period Bandwidth usage hourly in 24 hour period Requests made in hourly intervals over the reporting period Line Graph of Requests made hourly in 24 hour period Actions taken in hourly intervals over the reporting period Actions taken hourly in 24 hour period Infection by User Infections Infections by IP Summary report for content requests Summary for user activity Domains visited in chronological order Domains visited, number of requests and bandwidth Source Destination Login IP Group Domain Category 5 5

6 Sample Reports: 6

7 For more information on the Barracuda Web Filter, please visit webfilter or call a Barracuda Networks regional sales representative at ANTI-SPAM for a free 30-day evaluation. About Barracuda Networks, Inc. Barracuda Networks Inc. is the worldwide leader in and Web security appliances. Barracuda Networks also provides world-class IM protection, application server load balancing, Web application security and message archiving appliances. Coca- Cola, FedEx, Harvard University, IBM, L Oreal and Europcar are amongst the 70,000 organizations protecting their networks with Barracuda Networks solutions. Barracuda Networks success is due to its ability to deliver easy to use, comprehensive solutions that solve the most serious issues facing customer networks without unnecessary add-ons, maintenance, lengthy installations or per user license fees. Barracuda Networks is privately held with its headquarters in Campbell, Calif. Barracuda Networks has offices in eight international locations and distributors in more than 80 countries worldwide. For more information, please visit 7