Glasgow School Installs Bloxx Web Filtering To Combat Anonymous Proxies
The High School of Glasgow Selects Bloxx to Protect Staff and Students Online
Bloxx, the enterprise web filtering specialist, today announced that The High School of Glasgow has deployed Bloxx web filtering technology to monitor pupil and staff online activity and to provide enhanced security for its IT network.
With 1,100 pupils, The High School of Glasgow caters for children of all ages, from kindergarten up to the age of 18 years and offers a wide and varied curriculum.
It is divided into two campuses for Junior and Senior level, both of which are based in northwest Glasgow.
The decision to replace the school’s existing SurfControl web filtering solution with Bloxx Tru-View Technology, followed concerns by IT management that it was becoming increasingly difficult to protect the students from accessing offensive or inappropriate web material whilst at school.
“SurfControl’s heavy reliance on lists of URLs to determine which sites were subject to filtering provided avenues for pupils to attempt and in some cases succeed in bypassing the filtering system, mainly through the use of anonymous proxies,” explains the school’s Network Manager, Thomas Makridis.
Anonymous proxies are websites that allow users to easily bypass web filtering, enabling them to access blocked sites. With hundreds of new proxy sites being created every week, blocking access to these sites using URL lists has become difficult and time consuming for IT staff.
Bloxx Tru-View Technology web filtering combines the best of conventional tools with new intelligent identification methods and analysis technologies which can identify and block websites quicker and more accurately than other web filters that rely on manual URL classification and keyword scoring alone. In addition, Bloxx can automatically detect and block the vast majority of newly created anonymous proxy sites, significantly reducing the workload of IT staff and increasing protection against anonymous proxies.
Since installing Bloxx the school has witnessed considerable benefits. “Not only has Bloxx significantly reduced costs and made my job easier but, more importantly, by design it is much more effective and efficient than SurfControl was. It also has the bonus of malware and anti-virus functionality, adding additional layers of protection to our IT network,” comments Makridis.
“Children of this generation are becoming increasingly tech-savvy. This, coupled with the issue of anonymous proxies, means that schools need to strike a balance between protecting their students online, yet still enable them to take advantage of the Internet as a valuable source of information,” adds Bloxx Managing Director, Eamonn Doyle. “As the school has such a diverse range of ages and subjects, it is important that the network manager has the ability to tailor the solution to meet the specific needs of the users. It is great to hear how the school is benefiting from the added protection and flexibility of Bloxx.”
