As part of its effort to build on its core security platform, Computer Associates International Inc. on Monday announced a new content filtering solution. The eTrust Secure Content Management product is designed to work closely with the companys antivirus and other security applications and can be managed through the same interface.
The system relies on policy-based scanning that enables administrators to define rules for an entire company or smaller groups and enforce them consistently. Secure Content Management looks at all of the networks incoming and outgoing Web and mail traffic, looking for files, applications and even phrases that violate policies.
In addition to being able to sniff out malicious or unwanted content such as Kazaa traffic or pornography, the system can also flag e-mails containing inappropriate or sensitive data. Secure Content Management looks at each suspicious phrase or word in context to help reduce the number of false positives.
For example, the system would be able to determine that an e-mail between two doctors discussing the gender of a baby uses the word “sex” differently than a pornographic message does.
“That ability to put words into context and give them a certain weight is important as far as being able to stop legitimate e-mails from being blocked,” said Ian Hameroff, eTrust security strategist at CA, based in Islandia, N.Y.
Secure Content Management also includes a feature that allows end users to add or delete URLs or e-mail senders from the blocked list. CAs solution is software-based, and Hameroff said the company saw no reason to get into the security appliance business at this point.
“Most of those appliances are Linux-based and just end up being headless servers,” he said. “Were very confident it has the capability to scale to the same levels, if not higher, than appliances.”
Secure Content Management is currently in beta and should be ready for general availability in the fall. Pricing will start at $55 a seat.