Websense

Websense, Inc.

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Type	Privately held company
Industry	information security
Founded	1994
Headquarters	Austin, Texas
Key people	John McCormack, CEO
Products	TRITON Enterprise, TRITON Security Gateway Anywhere, TRITON Security Gateway, Web Security Gateway Anywhere, Cloud Web Security Gateway, Web Security Gateway, ACE in the Cloud, Email Security Gateway Anywhere, Cloud Email Security and Content Control, Email Security Gateway, Data Security Suite, Data Security Gateway, TRITON Mobile Security
Revenue	$361.5 million
Number of employees	2,000
Parent	Vista Equity Partners
Website	http://www.websense.com

Websense is an Austin-based company controlled by US defense contractor Raytheon specializing in computer security software. Their security solutions are used by businesses and government institutions to protect their networks from cybercrime, malware and data theft, as well as prevent users from viewing sexual or other inappropriate content and discourage employees from browsing non-business-related websites. Websense uses a combination of classification engines, filtering categories, data fingerprints, and word filters designated by the individual customer's network policy.

In the past, software employing these technologies has been criticized because it can block websites and content protected by free speech, like sexual education websites. This can occur intentionally as internet censorship, or simply by accident due to over-reaching categories leading some to call it "censorware". While countries have used this technology to block ideologies disapproved of by the government, Websense expressly prohibits using its software in this manner. The company also allows the public to ask for security details and categorization, or to request a re-categorization through email.

History

Websense was founded by Phil Trubey in 1994, and went public in the year 2000. Websense offers a broad array of security solutions and according to Gartner is one of the five companies leading the Secure Web Gateway (SWG) market, along with Blue Coat Systems and Zscaler and leading the Content Aware Data-Loss Prevention (DLP) market and a top four "Visionary Company" in the Secure Email Gateway Market.

Going Private

On May 20, 2013, Websense was acquired by Vista Equity Partners and taken private for $24.75 per share, for a total purchase price of $906M. This made Websense part of Vista's $14 billion software company portfolio. With the closing of the transaction, Websense stock was delisted from NASDAQ and is no longer a publicly traded company. The company's main operations have since been moved from San Diego, California to Austin, Texas.

On March 16, 2015, Reuters reported that defense contractor Raytheon was in talks to purchase Websense from Vista Equity Partners.

Acquisition by Raytheon

On April 19, 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that defense contractor Raytheon had bought control of Websense from Vista Equity Partners. Raytheon will have an 80% stake in the new cyber venture, with Vista Partners LLC holding 20%. According to Raytheon, Websense will form the core of a new cyber joint venture with forecast sales of $500 million this year and margins of around 20%.

Products

The company provides advanced solutions that include software-, appliance-, and cloud-based web, email, and mobile security, as well as data loss-prevention technologies. TRITON APX 8.0, launched in January 2015, as the new modular platform that provides companies with advanced threat and data theft prevention capabilities.

In December 2006, Websense bought PortAuthority for $90 million.

On October 3, 2007, Websense acquired UK company SurfControl.

On January 27, 2009, Websense acquired Defensio, a security company specializing in blog plugins that help to fight spam and malicious links in the comment sections of blogs.

Partnership with Facebook

On October 3, 2011, Facebook and Websense announced a partnership in order to protect Facebook's users from dangerous links that lead to malicious websites and malware sites. Websense was the first security company to extend their threat intelligence into the social media space through their relationship with Facebook to gain visibility into these dynamic, closed environments. According to TechCrunch, "Going forward, when a Facebook user clicks on a link, the new system will first check the link against Websense's system to determine whether or not it's safe. If it's not, a message is displayed warning the user that the link is potentially harmful and suggests you return to the previous page."

Security software

Websense may be implemented as a software application, computer appliance or cloud-based service operating at the transport layer as a transparent proxy, or at the application layer as a web proxy. In each scenario, the effect is that it can inspect network traffic to or from the internet for a targeted group of people.

Websense allowed system administrators to block access to websites and other protocols based on categories. These contain lists of sites that may be blocked at will, either at specified times or permanently.

In the early years of the company, Websense's software, Websense Enterprise, was best known for its URL filtering capabilities. Many businesses used Websense Enterprise technology to implement Employee Internet Management (EIM) solutions. However, over the course of the years, Websense began to evolve its product line by offering more security-focused technology.

In 2010, Websense launched the Websense TRITON solution and became the first security company to integrate the real-time web content analysis and malware protection of the Web Security Gateway, Websense Data Security Suite and Websense Email Security products to protect organizations and their information from advanced threats and data loss

In January 2015, the company launched TRITON APX 8.0, combining the best practices, learnings, and expertise from previous implementations into a single management console that allows companies to quickly identify, expose and prevent the latest in cyber-attacks and data theft. Through integrated web, email and data solutions, this new modular platform provides advanced threat protection across the Kill Chain.

According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, "Websense helps us defend against millions of online attacks each month and has significantly reduced malware infections. It's scalable, reliable, and is providing very effective web security for our systems. It helps us balance security with powerful productivity opportunities on the web and in social media, cloud computing, and mobility."

Policies can be produced that control either previously identified information that contains "tags" such as account numbers, credit card records or any combination of many variables. A score is assigned based on a predefined set of rules and an action applied. The process can be entirely automated but relies upon either preset policy templates or bespoke rule sets that are developed in house.

In companies, this can prevent access to sites known to be infected with malicious content, it can prevent malicious programs from connecting to outside sites, and can limit the amount of bandwidth used by individual computers in a network. The mere knowledge that web access is controlled can cause employees to stop using Internet during work hours for personal purposes, out of fear (that they may be caught misusing Internet).

The software also tracks individual internet usage to collect and report on any browsing behaviors that deviate from the standards set by the library, government or other employer, and its reports can be data drilled by "risk class, category, URL, application, user, workstation, dates, and more."

Research and Development

Websense maintains R&D facilities in San Diego and Los Gatos, CA; Reading, England; Sydney, Australia; Raanana, Israel; and Beijing, China. With 500 R&D employees, the Websense research and development department includes content operations, security research, software development, quality assurance, and documentation.

Blocking Errors

A comparative study in 2002, looked at how blocking pornography websites affected the search of legitimate health-related information. When configured at the least-restrictive settings (only blocking sites in the category of pornography), all blocking software blocked the least number of health-related sites, and blocked most of the pornography. As more restrictive settings were tested, the health-related searches were considerably impeded, while the efficiency of blocking pornographic websites increased only marginally. Websense had similar results with the other programs.

In a 2005 report the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union called Websense a deeply flawed technology. It further notes that, although the blocking technology has improved over the years since 2002, it still remains a "blunt instrument" and that in public libraries equipped with Websense people of all ages "are still denied access to a wide range of legitimate material."

A 2006 report by Brennan Center for Justice says that web filtering programs used in schools were error-prone. For Websense, it discovered that a page discussing pornographic content had been blocked despite not containing any pornography, and a whole website had been blocked because one of its pages had sexual content.

In 2007 Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky's websites were blocked by network administrators blocking the 'racism/hate speech' category for approximately 24 hours until Finkelstein complained.

A 2008 study on the use of Websense within the Technical Colleges of Georgia found that only two categories were blocked in all of the colleges surveyed, and that 39 categories out of the 43 listed were blocked by some, but not all, colleges, with numbers ranging from two colleges blocking a given category to 23 out of the 24 respondents. The software offers clients an optional continue button which permits users to access an otherwise blocked category if it is work related.

For approximately 24 hours in 2009, Websense classified router company Cisco's website under 'hack sites'. Websense has a submission form on the website to report mistaken categorization, although it is only available with an account.

In 2011 it was reported by a blogger that Websense would block pages that contained pornographic links anywhere in its content, even in the comments section; "a malicious attacker could get your whole site blocked at any time by the simple procedure of leaving dangerous, malicious or pornographic links in a blog's comments".

The blocking categories can contain errors, and can be used, accidentally or on purpose, to prevent people from seeing legitimate content. For example, Websense categories include: "Professional and Worker Organizations", "Social and Affiliation Organizations", "Political Organizations", "Advocacy Groups", "Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual Interest", "Sex education", "Traditional Religions" and "Non-traditional Religions and Occult and Folklore". In response to a complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union in 2011 (part of their "Don't Filter Me" project), Websense clarified its definition of the "Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual Interest" category, after it became apparent that some administrators mistakenly believed that this category had to be enabled to ensure that sexually explicit websites were blocked in schools.

Usage by Governments

See also: Internet censorship

The ability of public libraries, governments or other employers to block content based on ideology has proved controversial due to the subjects being blocked are controlled by an organization or even a single individual. The blocking of sites can exceed that which is required by bodies responsible for the oversight of these institutions, and, in the case of educational institutions, criticism has been leveled at the decision making process.

Due to these problems, a report issued in 2002 referred to Websense as "censorware," although this is not upheld by assessments by organizations such as Electronic Frontier Foundation, OpenNet Initiative, Global Network Initiative and Bolo Bhi, as of October 2013.

In 2004 Amnesty International listed Websense as one of several foreign companies that had reportedly provided technology that was used to censor and control the use of the Internet in China.

The OpenNet Initiative reported in 2004 that Websense technology was used by the government in Yemen to enforce censorship of the Internet.

In 2008 it was denounced again by the Yemen Times. The company has a policy of not doing business with governments that force censorship of the Internet or oppress rights. The only exceptions are for preventing minors from watching adult content and for child pornography. In 2009 Websense issued a statement that it was discontinuing the database downloads to the Yemeni ISP, due to the violation of its stated policy, but reporters from ONI infer that Websense software was still being used by Yemen's ISP, YemenNet, to censor Internet access as late as August 2010. Websense was finally discontinued in Yemen sometime around January 2011 and apparently it is no longer being used in any Middle East or North Africa country.

On November 1, 2011, Websense General Counsel, Michael Newman, released a public letter to "challenge all other American technology vendors to join us in prohibiting repressive regimes from using American technology to prevent open communications." The letter's call for action included, "If you are an executive at a security company that makes software that can be used to censor Internet activity in repressive regimes, we ask that you support the right course of action and stop selling repressive tools to oppressive regimes." The company joined the Global Network Initiative the same year.

In response, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noted, "Websense is pointing the technology sector in the direction of promoting freedom; BlueCoat represents the aiding oppressors. The choice for other tech companies is clear, and kudos to Websense for leading the way." In March 2012, the EFF also praised Websense for denouncing Pakistan's censorship plans.

See also

• List of parental control software
• Blue Coat Systems
• Fireeye
• McAfee
• Trustwave

Further reading

• Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, Ronald Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, Jonathan Zittrain, MIT Press, 2008. ISBN 0-262-54196-3, ISBN 978-0-262-54196-1

External links

• Official website