ScanSafe FAQs

1. Why is the ScanSafe service more cost effective than installing an appliance or gateway product?
2. How does ScanSafe Web Virus Scanning and Malware Scanning work?
3. What happens when ScanSafe detects a virus or spyware?
4. What is Outbreak Intelligence™?
5. Is my network protected with my current anti-virus software?
6. Do we need to install any software on our site?
7. Will using ScanSafe slow down our Internet access?
8. How does Web Filtering work?
9. How do I tailor the Web access policy to meet the needs of my business?
10. What happens if a user tries to access restricted content?
11. What type of reporting does ScanSafe offer?
12. How often are ScanCenter reports updated?
13. How can I access ScanCenter reports?
14. How do we register for the service and what changes do we need to make to our systems?
15. Can I use the ScanSafe's services on a trial basis?
16. What level of technical support is provided by ScanSafe?
17. Does the service support MPLS?
18. What are the resources required to run the Connector?
19. Can we setup different web filtering policies depending on who the user is?
20. Can we have one account for all our sites or do we require separate accounts?

1: Why is the ScanSafe service more cost effective than installing an appliance or gateway product?
ScanSafe's Web security services are more cost effective because they are significantly less expensive to deploy, configure and maintain than similar appliance-based products. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) studies have consistently shown that ScanSafe' services will save 30-40% over three years, depending upon the size of the organization, ranging from small to large enterprise. ScanSafe's services do not require any customer upgrades of hardware or software, nor do they require any maintenance typically associated with appliances. For more information see our TCO section.

Cost effectiveness is also about offering the best possible protection: the impact of a security breach on a company's management time and reputation can be very significant.  From a security perspective, ScanSafe's Web services offer better protection which can only be achieved by operating 'in the cloud' where there are significant economies of scope in identifying new malware breakouts. ScanSafe's Outbreak Intelligence™ quickly recognizes innovative malware and protects customers' LANs from attack.

2: How does ScanSafe Web Virus Scanning and Malware Scanning work?
ScanSafe is a fully managed service. Once your Internet traffic is routed through ScanSafe's scalable, high performance infrastructure, it is scanned to ensure you remain virus and spyware free and all malware is identified and blocked.

3: What happens when ScanSafe detects a virus or spyware?
Where ScanSafe detects malicious code or spyware during your web surfing or downloading, the relevant page/downloads will immediately be blocked and a customizable on-screen message will appear to the Internet user. Your IT administrator will receive an alert to advise that a virus or spyware has been stopped, and the block event will be logged in the ScanCenter management portal.

4: What is ScanSafe Outbreak Intelligence™?
ScanSafe Outbreak Intelligence™ is our proprietary proactive heuristics technology.  Outbreak Intelligence™ leverages ScanSafe's position at the Internet-level, at the center of all Web traffic from our customer network, to proactively identify threats, rapidly develop heuristics, and test these against real data to quickly ensure accuracy and effectiveness. ScanSafe's ability to analyze threats proactively ensures that Outbreak Intelligence™ heuristics are created and updated 24x7 for immediate protection.

5: Is my network protected with my current anti-virus software ?
There are different types of protection currently available:

Desktop anti-virus software can protect your system, but can be subject to delay in deploying new software and signature updates. Research has shown enterprises cannot update their desktop software fast enough to rely exclusively on this form of protection. Furthermore new malware can effectively target the desktop anti-virus application and render it useless.

Server based solutions in conjunction with desktop software provide better protection than desktop software alone. However, both products utilize reactive scanning technologies that are ineffective against innovative malware and can cause significant latency for users.

ScanSafe services offer a multi-tiered approach combining best-of-breed reactive scanning with our own ScanSafe Outbreak Intelligence™ which utilizes heuristic and statistical methods for real-time monitoring of Internet traffic to proactively identify previously undetected viruses, as well as certain threats that cannot be detected by signature based engines.  Furthermore, the ScanSafe service is updated every minute - faster and more frequently than any server software.

6: Do we need to install any software on our site?
No, ScanSafe is a fully managed service; there is no hardware or software required for scanning. Simply follow our convenient step-by-step instructions to route your traffic through us.

7: Will using ScanSafe slow down our Internet access?
ScanSafe provides industry leading protection with no perceptible latency. ScanSafe's dedicated high performance scanning servers are optimized to deliver near instantaneous responses even at peak traffic levels.

8: How does Web Filtering work?
ScanSafe is a fully managed service. Once your Internet traffic is routed through ScanSafe's robust, secure and resilient infrastructure, it is filtered against our continually updated block lists to ensure no prohibited or unwanted content reaches users.

9: How do I tailor the Web access policy to meet the needs of my business?
Creating and tailoring your Web access policy is easily done through our management portal, ScanCenter. Policies are based on URL categories, content types and file types. You navigate and tailor your policy to suit the different areas in your business through a visual dashboard. The dashboard enables recreational access at defined times of the day and the flexible URL blocked and allowed lists allow you to permit or block access to specific content.

10: What happens if a user tries to access restricted content?
If ScanSafe detects content that violates your Web access policy, the user will receive a customizable 'Access Denied' page. ScanSafe can notify the administrator with an email to inform them that an inappropriate request has been blocked.

11: What type of reports does ScanSafe offer?
ScanSafe provides many tailored reports available in different formats some of which are as follows:

• IM report - daily, weekly and monthly reports on IM use.
• Anti-virus/spyware reports - daily, weekly and monthly reports of blocked viruses and spyware.
• Email alerts - emails informing you when a virus, spyware or web page has been blocked.
• Bandwidth graphs - graphs of the amount of data your organization has requested from the Internet in bits per second.
• URL tables - tables of all URLs blocked as well as by category.Filtering reports - daily, weekly and monthly reports illustrating trends and characteristics of your company's internet usage by filtering category.
• User reports - reports on individual web user activity.

12: How often are these reports updated?
ScanSafe online reports are updated in real time for blocked threats and undesirable content.

13: How can I access these reports?
Authorized users at your organization can access ScanCenter, our customer portal, via the Web.

14: How do we register for the service and what changes do we need to make to our systems?
To get started complete our call back request form and one of our account executives will contact you shortly.  Our customer services team will be on hand to guide you through the straightforward configuration set up and ScanCenter portal access.

15: Can I use the ScanSafe's services on a trial basis?
You can take advantage of our risk free evaluation offer by completing the risk free evaluation form.

16: What level of technical support is provided by ScanSafe?
Our customer service engineers are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

17: Does the service support MPLS?
Absolutely, ScanSafe will work irrespective of how the traffic is sent to through our infrastructure. The services require standard HTTP(s) packets to be forwarded to a scanning tower from a public IP address. So the nature of internal networks/Ethernets has no bearing on the service.

18: What are the resources required to run the Connector?
The Connector has been optimized to ensure that it can run with virtually no impact. It is a very small Java application that requires a very low amount of resources to operate.

19: Can we setup different Web filtering policies depending on who the user is?
The Connector is a single piece of Java code to be installed only once and will give the administrator full granularity of the service down to individual user level if required. User privileges can then be setup by means of the ScanCenter Policy implementations, which can link in with network user/computer directories, such as Active Directory.

20: Can we have one account for all our sites or do we require separate accounts?
You only need one account. The granularity of the service means it is possible to manage a number of different sites from one account, depending on the setup you can configure ScanCenter to treat different user sites, as well as different users, according to a variety of customized rules.