Websense suite to detect malware behind social network doors

MUMBAI, INDIA: Websense, Inc. has announced an expanded suite of Defensio 2.0 security services for businesses and celebrities.

The new suite is capable of reducing security, productivity, and legal liability risks by analyzing and classifying user-generated content that is posted to corporate and personal Websites, blogs, user forums, and social networking sites, a company release said.

According to the release, the technology enhances the real-time threat intelligence of Websense products, including the industry-leading Websense Web Security Gateway. Defensio, the security eyes and ears of Facebook and the blogging world, analyzes more than 2.5 million comments and tens of millions of URLs weekly. The sweeping Web 2.0 threat detection and analysis conducted by Defensio is then incorporated into all Websense solutions, which are powered by the Advanced Classification Engine and the Threatseeker Network.

As a result, Websense customers are protected from emerging threats and malicious content before they spread beyond the social Web and are addressed by traditional security offerings. Websense is the only security vendor able to integrate into its security solutions the threat intelligence captured behind the closed doors of private social networks–where many threats first emerge, incubate, and spread.

The Defensio 2.0 service is based on technology acquired in 2009 and is in use today in a free, personal version by more than 25,000 Facebook and blog users. The free personal version is still available, but Websense now offers new specific versions that address the needs of smaller and larger companies and celebrities. The new Defensio 2.0 service version includes automatic removal of unsavory content, whether it is malicious, spam, or even profanity; key for those looking to protect their brand image. This new technology reduces the costly manual burden on marketing and security teams who would previously have to remove each piece of comment spam by hand, and investigate every URL in a comment or post for security threats.