Completely block or control the sending and receiving of files via instant messaging (IM) clients with Websense Enterprise^® IM Attachment Manager™. This add-on module to Websense Enterprise allows organizations to establish flexible IM use policies and mitigate security and legal risks posed by unmanaged IM attachment usage, while improving IT resource availability and employee productivity.

Managing the enterprise risks of public IM clients

IM clients have expanded from a consumer-focused communication tool to business productivity and communications application. IM combines the convenience of email, the notification of presence, and the immediate response of phone conversations. IT promotes collaboration and community building among employees, partners, and customers, which can result in significant business benefits. Despite such benefits, however, many enterprises are hesitant to adopt IM because of the inherent security, productivity, legal liability, and bandwidth concerns.

Websense Enterprise, the industry's leading Employee Internet Management solution, extends its policy control and enforcement to network applications such as instant messaging, peer-to-peer, and streaming media. Organizations can elect to allow access to IM, or even a specific IM client such as MSN^® Messenger, to specific users/groups or only certain times of the day.

The risk of not managing IM attachments

Enterprises that allow IM for business purposes also need to manage the ability to transfer files via IM. IM attachments introduce a security threat since they are invariably not routed through the typical corporate anti-virus (AV) protection deployed at the network perimeter, enabling viruses to easily propagate within a network. Intensive file sharing over IM can also negatively impact the performance of the network due to excessive use of bandwidth.

Organizations also face significant business risk from disclosure of intellectual property or business critical information using IM's file attachment capability. In addition, enterprises are at legal risk when employees share illegal or inappropriate content via corporate networks. The economic impact of these liabilities can be very significant.

The IM Attachment Manager solution

Websense Enterprise provides organizations with a multilayered, highly flexible policy-based solution for managing the use of IM clients by both preventing access to Web sites where IM clients can be downloaded, as well as managing IM network protocols. The IM Attachment Manager module extends those capabilities by providing a unique and comprehensive solution that enables organizations to implement employee policies governing IM file attachments. IM Attachment Manager seamlessly integrates with the Websense Enterprise solution, leveraging an organization's existing infrastructure and requiring minimal deployment effort.

IM Attachment Manager enables the network administrator to::

• Block or allow file attachments over the most popular IM applications:
  • AOL^® Instant Messenger
  • Microsoft^® MSN Messenger
  • Yahoo!^® Messenger
• Define custom IM file attachment policies using options such as users, groups, time of day and day of week.
• Provide real-time and historical views of company risk related to employee use of IM file attachments.
• Manage IM file attachments dynamically based on total network usage with the Websense Enterprise^® Bandwidth Optimizer™ module to ensure network bandwidth availability for business-critical applications.

Key features

Flexible filtering options - Set different IM file attachment policies by user, group, workstation, network, and time of day. For example, block file attachments for MSN Messenger from the marketing team before 9:00 AM and after 5:00 PM.

Automatic policy enforcement - Monitor IM file attachments automatically and allow/deny IM file transfer requests. Automated updates to the IM file attachment protocol list ensure accuracy and minimize administration requirements.

Easy deployment - Deploy IM Attachment Manager with the click of a button in Websense Manager. No changes to the desktop/client configuration are necessary.

Enterprise-wide IM threat detection - Analyze real-time and historical information on employee use of IM file attachments using Websense Enterprise reporting tools including Explorer^TM, Reporter^TM, and Real-Time Analyzer^TM.

Seamless integration with Websense Enterprise - IM Attachment Manager integrates directly into the Websense Enterprise management console and policy model with no new interfaces to learn or consoles to deploy.

System requirements

IM Attachment Manager is an add-on module to Websense Enterprise 5.1 and requires deployment of the Websense Network Agent (dated February 2004 or later), included in Websense Enterprise.

Hardware:

• Pentium III or greater processor or Sun Ultra 10 Processor with 512 MB RAM. Hardware requirements will vary upon configuration. Please see deployment guide for additional information.

Software:

• Microsoft^® Windows 2003 Server, Windows^® 2000 Server (Service Pack 2 or greater) or Windows^® NT 4 Server (Service Pack 6a or greater) or Red Hat Linux 8.0-9.0 or Sun Solaris 2.6-9