Web Gateway 7.1.5 Product Guide - McAfee

6
Web filtering
Contents
Filtering web objects
Virus and malware filtering
URL filtering
Media type filtering
HTML filtering
Global whitelisting
SSL scanning
Supporting functions
User messages
Filtering web objects
The McAfee Web Gateway appliance filters web objects before the users of your network can access
them. The sections of this chapter explain the filtering process and tell you how to administer it.
The functions for filtering web objects are controlled by rules. These say, for example, when access to
an object is blocked or allowed. They go through blocking lists and whitelists and call modules to let
them retrieve other relevant filtering information.
For example, a rule calls the Anti-Malware module to find out whether an object is infected, while
another rule calls the URL Filter module to retrieve information on URL categories.
Administering the filtering process
Administering the filtering process for web objects includes the following activities:
• Reviewing and modifying the filtering rules — These rules are implemented at the initial setup
by the policy creation wizard or as a default system. You can review and modify what is implemented.
• Maintaining the filter lists — These include mainly blocking lists and whitelists for URLs, media
types, HTML pages, and other web objects.
• Configuring the module settings — By configuring these settings you determine the way the
modules retrieve relevant information for the filtering process. For example, it depends on these
settings whether the Antimalware module uses only virus signatures to detect infected web objects
or also proactive methods.
• Adapting user messages on filtering actions — A message sent to a user might read as follows:
The transferred file contained a virus and was therefore blocked. To adapt these messages, you need
to configure the settings of the actions in question.
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