Latest News from WebSpy

Vantage Giga can be a very effective tool for generating useful management reports on Internet, email, and network activity in large organizations. Because large organizations generally have a large volume of log data to report on, here are a few guidelines to help make the reporting process as efficient as possible. Partition your storage By default Vantage [...]

Vantage Ultimate can be a very effective tool for generating useful management reports on Internet, email, and network activity in large organizations. Because large organizations generally have a large volume of log data to report on, here are a few guidelines to help make the reporting process as efficient as possible. Start Small Import a small amount [...]

Some log formats contain message fields, or other free-form fields which are not easily displayed in reports and summaries, so although these fields are imported from the log files, they are not displayed in the standard summaries when you run an analysis or create a report template. However, you can still add these fields to [...]

In the Web Module it is possible to replace the details of any field in any report, or analysis, with a random string of characters. This can be done after the reports and storages have been published to the web module, and is a permission that can be set on a per-user or per-group basis. So, [...]

There are many different ways to report on websites in Vantage, but how do you know that you have got all the hits for the site you’re interested in, and all of it’s sub-domains? Some websites have a lot of sub domains and other associated sites, so if you just report on the main site you [...]

To create an anonymous report in Vantage you can use the MD5 function to replace summary items with a unique MD5 sum, such as “294de3557d9d0b3d2d8a1e6aab028cf”. To do this: 1. Go to Reports in Vantage and right-click the report template you wish to anonymize, then choose Edit Template 2. Double-click the node in the template that contains the users 3. [...]

A table in a report is not limited to just a single summary field, such as user or site or date, all of these can be included in a single table if you want them to. There are two types of columns that can be included in tables in report templates: Key values and Aggregates. *Key values [...]

A lot of the sample reports that come with WebSpy Vantage have a section of the report for Productivity, so what does this mean and how can you customize it? Productivity in Reports is a grouping of categories or Profiles. Using Aliases each category or profile is defined as either productive or unproductive. WebSpy Vantage includes [...]

In this video we will look at how to report on the search terms that users have typed into search engines. You can also view this information in a text article here: http://www.webspy.com/blogs/index.php/reporting-on-keywords-typed-into-search-engines/

This blog article will look at the different permissions that can be assigned to users and groups to access the web module and its features, and how this can be done. In order for your users to be able to login to the web module they will need to be given permission to do so. You [...]

In this video we will look at the structure of report templates, and how you can use structure to report on what you want to see. You can also view this information in a text article here: http://www.webspy.com/blogs/index.php/report-templates-template-structure/

Release Date: 3rd April 2013 Changes since 2.2.0.84: Log Formats: Apache: Alteration to Apache IBM format (duration field) Astaro: Fixed Date/Time field (time missing) ContentKeeper: Added support for new ContentKeeper syslog format IronPort: Added Ironport W3C format IronPort: Fixed Bounce Mail detection & importing IronPort: Renamed Ironport ‘C350 mail’ to ‘C-series mail’ IronPort: Improved C-Series Mail to import more C370 & C650 logs IronPort: Fixed [...]

This article will show you how to report on categories of websites with WebSpy Vantage. There are different ways to report on categories of websites with Vantage, depending on the type of proxy server, firewall, or logging device you have. WebSpy has its own website categorization system, called Profiles. Find out more about WebSpy’s Profiles and [...]

Profiles in WebSpy Vantage are WebSpy’s own site categorization system. The categorization is done using keyword matching on the entire URL of the website, and the results of this can be seen in Reports and Summaries Analyses. Vantage comes with some sample profiles included which can be fully customized to suit your own categorization requirements. Site [...]

This video will explain how to publish a report to the Vantage Ultimate Web Module, and the various options and permission settings available. You can also view this information in a text article here: http://www.webspy.com/blogs/index.php/publishing-a-report-to-the-web-module/

This article will explain how to publish a storage to the Vantage Ultimate Web Module, and the various options and permission settings available. When you publish a storage to the Web Module, Vantage makes a copy of the storage to the web module’s data location. During the upload a copy of the storage is also saved [...]

In this video we will look at the construction of a node within the report template, and what you can customize on it. You can also view this information in a text article here: http://www.webspy.com/blogs/index.php/report-templates-what-makes-up-a-node/

This video tutorial looks at the first step in customizing report templates – duplicating them to your own log file schema, so that you can use all of the fields from your log files rather than just the base fields. You can also view this information in a text article here: http://www.webspy.com/blogs/index.php/report-templates-making-the-most-of-your-data/

In this blog we will look at the structure of report templates, and how you can use structure to report on what you want to see. Any element within a report template is known as a node. These nodes can be set at different levels of the report template to achieve different reporting results. Any node [...]

This article will explain how to publish a report to the Vantage Ultimate Web Module, and the various options and permission settings available. When you publish a report to the Web Module, Vantage generates the report as part of the publish process. Stand alone reports that you have previously generated cannot be retrospectively published to the [...]

WebSpy Vantage is able to report on the search words that users typed into search engines. This article will show you how to create a report that shows this information or add it to an existing report template. When a user goes to a search engine, and types in a search term, this word(s) is recorded [...]

This video tutorial will look at the best report templates to use when reporting on an individual user, and how to set up filters to select the right user. You can also view this information in a text article here: http://www.webspy.com/blogs/index.php/how-to-report-on-a-user/

This video tutorial covers the filters dialog and all options related to filtering in Vantage. You can also view this information in a text article here: https://webspy.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1029766-filters

Vantage is designed to import everything from your log files, but if you are not interested in looking all of the fields available, then this could be slowing down your reports. By default Vantage will import every field and every hit from your log files, however, most log files contain a lot of extra fields that [...]

This article is designed to provide information about reporting on file and/or folder access. Confidential files that require protection generally require a sophisticated end point security or file auditing solution, however Microsoft provides a Windows Security Event log that can be configured to report on this information. Configuration: The default configuration of the Event Log does not [...]

One of the most common things we hear is ‘how do I report on when a site was visited’. While this poses a few potential problems, this article will look at some possible solutions. Vantage does import and have a record of the exact date and time for every hit that is in its storages. Although [...]

This blog will look at the best report templates to use when reporting on an individual user, and how to set up filters to select the right user. Vantage comes with sample report templates, and two of these reports are the User Activity and the Individual User Activity template. The User Activity template is designed to [...]

In this blog we will look at the construction of a node within the report template, and what you can customize on it. Any element within a template is termed a “node” in Vantage. This can include a stand-alone table and/or chart, as well as a drilldown element. In this blog we will look at what [...]

We have released an automatic update for the Vantage range of applications. This update includes some new loader formats as well minor fixes and improvements. Of note, this release includes support for the new format of IronPort, Palo Alto Threat and URL filtering, Clearswift Email Appliance, and Infoblox NIOS DNS queries; as well as improvements for [...]

We are very happy to announce that Fastvue has successfully acquired WebSpy, a long time leader in log analysis and reporting applications. WebSpy was established in 1996 and since then has been distributing its range of WebSpy branded reporting tools globally many thousands of customers.

Microsoft Forefront TMG logs activity to it’s internal SQL Express database. In addition to the extra steps you need to perform to access this database from a remote server, importing data into Vantage is much slower than importing from W3C Text logs. You can easily change the logging from SQL Express to W3C text logs in [...]

This is the first in a series of articles on customizing report templates in Vantage. The first step is opening up the existing templates to all of the fields available in your log files, rather than just the base fields, giving you more data to work with. Each report template has a ’schema’ associated with it. [...]

When you register your WebSpy subscription license, the software will advise you how many days you have left on your current contract. When the contract expires, the software will stop at the splash-screen in the loading process. You will need to contact your WebSpy representative or reseller to purchase a subscription renewal in order to continue using the software. Once your subscription renewal has been processed by the WebSpy team the software you will need to request a new Unlock Code for your installation in order for it to continue working.

This is a guide for new customers to register their WebSpy Vantage Ultimate software for the first time. The process requires a few simple steps which will be outlined below, followed by some troubleshooting options if you get stuck along the way.

This is the sixth of a series of videos showing you how to configure Vantage in detail. This video covers registering Vantage and the Web Module.

This is the fifth of a series of videos showing you how to configure Vantage in detail. This video will cover the Organization section of the software, showing you how to import your users and groups from Active Directory / LDAP.

This is the fourth of a series of videos showing you how to configure Vantage in detail. This video follows on from #3, and will cover the Profiles section of the software, and how to use site categorization.

This is the third of a series of videos showing you how to configure Vantage in detail. In this video we’ll look at how to import some data into a storage, use the Summaries section, and start customizing Aliases.

This is the second of a series of videos showing you how to configure Vantage in detail. This video will take you through the system requirements, and the installation of Vantage and the Web Module.

This is the first of a series of videos showing you how to configure Vantage in detail. This video is a high level overview, giving you a general insight into the software and its different parts.

In the latest Vantage auto-update (2.2.0.68), we’ve included an experimental feature to allow multiple instances of WebSpy Vantage to run on the same operating system. The goal here is to run reports at the same time using multiple instances of the application. To do this, we have also include a second experimental feature to disable [...]

We have released an automatic update for the Vantage range of applications. This update includes some new loader formats, an experimental feature as well minor fixes and improvements. Of note, this release includes full support for Microsoft Exchange 2010 Tracking logs (previously supported with the Exchange 2007 loader, but missing a few fields), as well as [...]

Majority of our social networking tips and ‘How to’ articles are aimed at organizations managing and reporting on network traffic to improve online safety at work. This time around I thought I share some tips focusing on how individuals can ensure they’re being smart and safe when engaging in social networking activities. Hopefully these tips [...]

I’ve put together a couple of quick videos to show you how to configure logging on your SonicWALL appliance, and how to import and analyze these log files in WebSpy Vantage. You can also read through these steps on this page: Analyzing SonicWALL log files with WebSpy. Creating and Importing SonicWALL log files Analyzing SonicWALL log files We [...]

The other night as I was getting ready to sleep, I received an email from the host of my personal Linux VPS saying that I had exceeded my monthly transfer quota. I didn't pay much mind to the warning, as the excess transfer was insignificant, and at that time I was too tired to care. I closed my email, got into bed and fell asleep.

Astaro Security Gateway devices are capable of producing some very detailed log files including full URLs, usernames, categories, block action and reason which gives you some great reporting options in WebSpy Vantage. Take a look at our dedicated Astaro pages to get an idea of what can be achieved when analyzing Astaro Web Gateway log files [...]

In light of Clearswift’s (network security vendor and WebSpy technology partner) latest research report, Web 2.0 in the Workplace Today, WebSpy and Clearswift will host a series of webinars aimed at the channel. Even though the webinars are channel focused I thought I’d share the most recent one with all of you. It includes very [...]

Clearswift (network security vendor and WebSpy technology partner) recently released their first report, in a series of three, on the use of social media and web 2.0 in the workplace. From not wanting to touch social media with a ten foot pole, employers are these days increasingly aware of the benefits of social media and web [...]

I just read a long, but rather interesting, article on adolescent cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is legally defined as repeated harassment online, although in popular use, it can describe even a sharp-elbowed, unwarranted swipe online. We all know kids can be cruel because they often lack the maturity and empathy to understand the emotional ramifications their [...]

If you are thinking about deploying IronPort Web Security Appliances you probably want to plan how much disk space to budget for with regards to logging and reporting. Every organization is different with regards to the volume of logs it creates, but I’ve averaged three data sets submitted to us by customers to produce the following [...]

We often recommend customers using Microsoft ISA or TMG switch their logging to W3C text file, in order to get the best possible import speed, and also because the text logs are much easier to access from a remote machine (see my previous article on accessing TMG’s SQL Express Log database). Logging to the default [...]

According to recent report, Google has a record slice, 6.4%, of the world’s Internet traffic. An accurate figure? Well, we wanted to put this claim to the test and therefore started off by investigating the share of WebSpy’s traffic to Google sites. We also encourage our Vantage and Analyzer users to do the same thing [...]

As it’s always been pretty difficult getting accurate figures on Twitter demographics and usage I was pretty chuffed to come across below statistics and facts. If you are, or considering, blocking Twitter at your workplace please have a look through these amazing numbers and think again. Seems like Twitter is here to stay doesn’t it? [...]

I came across this great article about elderly people at aged care facilities and their use of the Internet and social media. After reading the article I continued with some quick and dirty research. It is pretty clear, and not very surprising, that only a minority of aged care facilities around the world offer Internet [...]

Today I thought I’d cover some interesting hit information and explain how you can get more out of your data by ensuring your hits are accurately reported on. As the term ‘hit’ can sometimes be confusing, let’s start off by properly define hits. What is a hit? WebSpy classifies a hit as an individual file or item [...]

We’ve just released an auto update for the Vantage software range. This release includes some new log format additions, and some fixes to existing formats. What’s New? Clearswift SECURE Web Gateway W3C Clearswift have just released the latest version of their SECURE Web Gateway, which includes a transaction log export function. This enables you to send transaction logs [...]

We recently announced that our Analyzer Range is due to be removed from our product portfolio. Removed in this instance means that the Analyzer range will become a legacy product, we’ll stop selling and promoting the range and get rid of a big chunk of Analyzer information from our website. This is nothing [...]

Today I was asked how to filter out computer objects when importing your Organizational structure into WebSpy Vantage. The default LDAP query when you first run through the Import Organization wizard should filter these computers objects out. The query is: (&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)) In Active Directory, computers do not generally have an objectCategory equal to Person. Computers usually have the [...]

Google recently announced a change to their search process: Google Instant. With Google Instant, users get results as they are typing and watch the results change as their search query changes without ever pressing enter.   Google states that the most obvious change is that you get to the right content much faster than before because [...]

WebSpy EMEA, servicing Europe, Middle East and Africa, has changed contact details: Suite 14242, 2nd Floor 145-157 St John Street London, EC1V 4PY Find us on Google Maps Phone: +44 (0) 208 133 9004 Fax: +44 (0) 1509 380 036 Email: Email: europesales@webspy.com

An evening not too long ago, one of our developers had nothing better to do than compiling movie quotes from Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger into a very amusing conversation. I wanted to share this clip with the rest of you to brighten up your day AND provide you with a short an unobtrusive break, [...]

WebSpy has been working closely with Cisco and the IronPort team over the past few years to develop what we believe is the most intuitive, flexible and fastest reporting solution for Cisco IronPort users. We’ve just completed our ‘WebSpy Reporting for Cisco IronPort’ video. Although this video is aimed at the Cisco channel [...]

We have released an update to the Vantage range of applications to fix an issue with the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) loader. An issue was introduced in build 2.2.0.42 when a change was made to the underlying data type of the Url Category field in the Microsoft TMG Web Schema. Unfortunately this change [...]

WebSpy Australia, servicing Australia, Asia and the Pacific, has changed address to: Level 5, 34A 25 Walters Drive Osborne Park WA 6017 Find us on Google Maps All other contact details remain unchanged: Toll Free: 1800 801 121 Phone: +61 8 9321 3322 Fax: +61 8 9321 3377

We are happy to announce that WebSpy has recently appointed Avnet Technology Solutions as a key distributor for the Netherlands. Avnet Technology Solutions is a value-added distributor of computer products, software and services. Within the Networking and Security segment Avnet specializes in firewall solutions, perimeter security, virtual private networking (VPN), content security, antivirus and URL [...]

We have just released an auto update for the Vantage range of applications. This update includes support for the Juniper SA series and Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange 2010. Here’s the full list of changes: New: Juniper SA Series. Vantage can import and report on web traffic and VPN connections. New: Microsoft Forefront Protection for Exchange [...]

Event logs have been a feature of the MS Operating System (Windows) since the original release of Windows NT in1993. Designed to provide an audit trail of system use, event logging records the actions that occur within the system, such as users logging in, failure of a component to start, or an attempt to print [...]

We’ve just released an update to the Vantage range of application, including the Web Module. This release will be welcomed with open arms by many customers for the following reasons: General usability improvements in the Web Module Multi-select / delete options, Ajax progress indicators to avoid page refreshes, export from Dynamics Report tab and more (see below) Fixes to [...]

If you’re using Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, there is a bug in the logging that causes Bytes Sent and Bytes Received to be logged in reverse. This seems to only affect the Web Proxy logs – both SQL and W3c . We noticed in a few web reports, that people were generally uploading a [...]

Microsoft ISA Server and Forefront TMG users are probably familiar with isaserver.org’s informative news articles, tutorials, blogs and forums. I just wanted to bring your attention to one of isaserver.org’s contributing blog authors, Richard Hicks. Richard has been working with Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 and its predecessors for more than 12 years. [...]

One of the most common questions we get asked by users of Microsoft TMG and ISA is why there is so much traffic attributed to the Anonymous user. Even though unauthenticated access to the web has been disabled, they still see the ‘Anonymous’ user as one of the top users in their reports. So let’s use [...]

IT security firm Trend Micro recently released results from their latest study surveying 1,600 end-users in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. The study focused on employees’ use of corporate computers while on corporate LANs. Trend Micro found that the use of social networking sites grew globally from 19% in 2008 [...]

Security and Threat Management solutions, such as Microsoft Forefront TMG, IronPort and Blue Coat, use predefined URL categorization to simplify blocking and filtering management. Different security vendors have different ways of categorizing websites but it generally involves referring to a gigantic, regularly updated database of millions of websites sorted into 50-100 relevant categories. Majority of security [...]

First of all, a big thank you to all our Alpha testers for downloading and trying out WebSpy Soho Alpha. We’re happy to let you know that we’ve just released an improved Alpha version with new fixes and updates. The previous Soho Alpha version will stop working on the 30th of June 2010 – to [...]

Ever so often new reports and findings on organizational cost of employees’ unproductive Internet usage are published. As a developer of Internet reporting software, that assists in reducing these costs, we naturally highlight the findings whenever we can. Simply to make companies aware that the cost of a WebSpy license is marginal in relation to [...]

I’ve produced a video on how to use WebSpy Vantage to report on IronPort’s Web Security Appliance’s access log files. It is quite a detailed look at the key tasks involved in setting up and using WebSpy Vantage with IronPort WSA access logs, and is therefore divided into several parts. The videos take you through [...]

It was a bright cold day in June, and the clocks were striking thirteen as I browsed Google Sci/Tech News and came across ZDNet’s ‘Govt wants ISPs to record browsing history’ article. The Australian Attorney-General’s Department recently confirmed ongoing discussions about implementing a data retention regime in Australia requiring ISPs to hold customers web [...]

If you need to analyze and report on Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway log files, the most common stumbling block is enabling access to the default SQL Express databases that contains the firewall and web proxy log files. The log databases are stored in an SQL Express instance named MSFW. By default these databases cannot be [...]

Jack Andrys, CEO of WebSpy (longtime sponsor of This Week in Startups), organized the first This Week in Startups Meetup in Perth, Australia, on the 8th of June 2010, at WebSpy’s headquarter. The meet-up attracted just under 20 attendees, making it the largest in Australia. A great mix of people showed up to present their business, [...]

As an eminent opponent against excessive Internet blocking and filtering it was a delight to read Clearswift’s (network security vendor and WebSpy technology partner) latest research report outlining the impact of social media and Web 2.0 in today’s workplace. Over 1,600 managers and staff were surveyed covering the UK, Australia, Germany, and the USA during [...]

Jack Andrys, CEO of WebSpy (longtime sponsor of This Week in Startups), has offered to organize the first Startup Meetings in Perth, Australia, on the 8th of June 2010. The official monthly Startup Meetup is hosted by This Week in Startups. At the time of writing there are 135 Startup Meetups scheduled to take place [...]

Today I was speaking to a customer that had the following reporting request. "I would like to know how much of my bandwidth is being eaten by each protocol. I will then use this information to determine if circuit may need to be increased due to increased traffic". This customer was collecting syslog messages from a Cisco Firewall, then using WebSpy Vantage to generate reports. There's a simpler method.

I’m frequently asked how WebSpy Vantage utilizes a systems CPU resources. Sometimes you may notice Vantage utilizing 100% of your machine's CPU power, and other times it will be hardly touched. So here is an overview of how the software works internally so you can understand when your CPUs will and won’t be pushed.

We've just released an auto update for WebSpy Vantage (Premium, Giga and Ultimate) as well as the Web Module. This is a great update for Vantage Ultimate users as we've introduced a new feature/tab into the Web Module called 'Dynamic Reports'. Here's the full list of changes since the last auto update (2.2.0.32 on the 14th April 2010).

img.alignleft {float: none;} A 16 year old teen was recently arrested for bringing a partially completed bomb to school. It is alleged that that the crude bomb was one out of four he planned to detonate at his high school in Florida. The teen’s locker was searched after school administrators were alerted about his internet activity [...]

Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) popularity is starting to pick up. WebSpy added support for analyzing and reporting on TMG logs even before the public release and have been improving our compatibility ever since. One of Forefront TMG’s major strengths is obviously its URL categorization and filtering abilities. Since TMG now takes care of the [...]

I’m actually not trying to compare WebSpy Vantage with Google Analytics (GA), it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Both solutions provide powerful ways of tracking how visitors find your site and how they navigate through it, ideally giving you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. However, GA is a pure web analytics [...]

We are happy to announce that all existing, and prospective, WebSpy clients are once again presented with a unique opportunity to participate in a workplace internet leisure browsing (WILB) study carried out by Dr Brent Coker from the University of Melbourne. Dr Brent Coker is seeking organizations who are interested in participating in a study to [...]

To set things straight from the get-go, this is not a plug about our partner program, margin structure or reseller support. All the ingredients necessary to bake a successful partner cake are present (and being improved…get ready for some exciting partner announcement in the coming weeks). No, this is simply a very factual overview of [...]

We have just issued an automatic update for the Vantage range of products, including Vantage Ultimate and the Web Module. Unfortunately there are two issues with the Web Module auto update process. Everyone on a 64 bit operating system machines will encounter issue #1 (Unable to locate installation location), and some of you may encounter issue #2 (System.IO.FileLoadException).

It’s been a crazy few weeks but we’ve finally managed to get the first release of WebSpy Soho out the door. It is our intention to keep our Alpha testers up to date with our ongoing development. Right now, I’d like to inform you about some issues experienced by a handful of testers and how to go about resolving them.

I've just been trying to set up an OpenBSD 4.6 VM on one of our XenServer machines, and found that it kept shutting itself down during boot after showing the message "nvram: invalid checksum". After digging around online, I found a fix.

We have just added support for the 'Group' field in IronPort's access logs. You can add this field to your logs by adding %g in the 'Custom Fields' edit box. We have also added support for the custom fields Body Request Size and Body Response Size.

Our support for Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway is quite new and we’ve just fixed a couple of issues that we haven’t yet released as a public update yet. In particular, this update fixes the "specified cast invalid error" that occurs when importing the Web Proxy database logs.

Thanks to popular demand we are happy to announce that we will be giving away another 100 one year subscription of WebSpy Soho (full version – once launched) AND a pair Bang & Olufsen’s absolutely amazing earphones. There’s TWO things you need to do to for the chance to win software and earphones: Register your Interest in [...]

A frequently used argument against email and internet monitoring at work is invasion of privacy. This argument is often uttered by employees who feel that their privacy is, in one way or another, being compromised by monitoring efforts. Is it a legitimate argument? In short: legally no, practically maybe. Let me explain… LEGALLY Every country has its [...]

I've been having a look through the reporting functionality included in Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway to find that not much has changed from ISA Server 2006. There is some new information regarding the newly implemented URL categorization and threat management technology, but there is very little flexibility or customization for those with reporting requirements beyond general overviews cluttered with irrelevant information. Here is what I consider to be the 8 main limitations of Microsoft Forefront TMG's reporting functionality.

I was very pleased to read that the Macquarie Group broker who was filmed looking at near-nude photographs during a live interview will keep his job. Macquarie issued a statement saying an internal review of the events of February 2 has been completed and that the employee will remain an employee. The statement also [...]

Picture this: A male financial advisor, at a well-known bank, receives an email with near-nude photographs. He takes his time looking through the photos, every now and then minimizing them to prevent people passing by from catching a glimpse. We are all well aware of the less desirable effects this behavior has on a [...]

Lo and behold, not only is excessive internet blocking bad for employee morale and productivity – It also forces iconic Canadian history magazine to change name… The 90 year old Winnipeg-based magazine, The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine, boasts a subscriber base of 50,000 and an estimated total readership of more than 350,000. Starting April the Beaver [...]

Browse for awesome porn! Find awesome porn and then attach it to a group email, sent to everyone who works with you in accounting… Overrun your lunch hour by 4 hours because poker_champ03 is beating you at 5 card stud… Write an email to your lover describing in intimate details what you would like to do [...]

We are happy to announce that we will be giving away 500 one year subscription of WebSpy Soho (full version – once launched). All you need to do is to be one of the first 500 people to register interest in the product at www.webspy.com/soho   About WebSpy Soho WebSpy Soho is our soon-to-be-launched dashboard application for anyone [...]

International Business Times (IBT) recently reported that “Many young people are turning to proxy servers to get round their school’s internet security systems to access banned websites, including social networks and gaming sites.” This concern was also raised in our recent “Notes on E-Security Development” blog. Majority of schools and educational institutions in developed countries are investing [...]

WebSpy analyze and report on different types of log files, from different types of network and security devices (such as web servers, web proxy servers, email server, event logs, firewalls, switches, routers, and spam and virus application), taking raw data and converting it into meaningful and actionable information. We take great pride in this versatility [...]

If you follow WebSpy on twitter or listen to our sponsored podcasts (This week in Start-ups and Martin Bailey Photography podcast) you would know we recently asked fellow twitterees and podcast listeners to vote for their favorite WebSpy Soho Logo. We have now decided on the future look of our upcoming software and would like to [...]

Most of our customers using Microsoft ISA server are probably aware by now that Microsoft have released the new version of ISA server, which is now re-branded as Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG). In addition to this, Microsoft has also re-branded its Internet Access Gateway (IAG) to Unified Access Gateway (UAG). If you’re confused, Derek [...]

Last Friday, the 4th of December, WebSpy’s CEO, Jack Andrys, made a guest appearance on popular podcast This Week in Startups (TWiST). TWiST features entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and a rotating group of guest experts who bring you a weekly take on the best, worst, most outrageous and interesting from the world of Web companies. The [...]

We are pleased to announce that WebSpy has completed the acquisition of procurement and materials management system provider, Marketboomer. Marketboomer provides supply chain management software to help businesses (such as InterContinental Hotel Group, Emirates Airline Catering, Hyatt and more) take cost out of their supply chain. The solution enables businesses to trade with each other [...]

Today I was asked how to transfer one report in the web module to a different user. The obvious reason for this is when someone leaves your company, the reports they had access to need to be transfered to the new person taking over their role. Unfortunately there’s not an easy way to do this via the user interface yet, but it is a planned feature. In the mean time, you can do it by editing an XML file manually.

“If network administrators simply instituted proper configuration policies and conducted good network monitoring, about 80 percent of commonly known cyber attacks could be prevented.” These courageous words were uttered by Richard Schaeffer, information assurance director at the NSA. He also added that simply focusing on adhering to common best practices would substantially raise the bar. Wired [...]

One feature on our roadmap is the ability to re-brand the WebSpy Vantage Web Module, so that when your users hit the web module to view reports, they’re greeted with your own company logo and branding. In the mean time, I thought I’d share a way to re-brand the main elements in the Web Module by editing a few files and replacing a few images.

Google Alerts have become an invaluable tool to keep track of WebSpy’s online presence and mentions. I’m also alerted on keywords related to other players in the Internet Security Industry. The last couple of weeks I have noticed quite a steep increase in alerts on a well-known internet blocking and filtering vendor. Majority of these [...]

Tis should be the season to be jolly but it looks like employers have reasons to watch out, and maybe even cry, all because Santa Claus is coming to town. Gallup has reported that Christmas spending intentions are currently down, compared to last year. Americans are planning to spend an average of $740 on gifts this [...]

If you follow @WebSpy on Twitter, you would have received a very strange Direct Message (DM) from us yesterday. Something along the lines of "rofl this you?" or "you're on this vid!" or "I found you on here!" Unfortunately, the WebSpy Twitter account fell victim to a phishing scam, and as a result sent phishing spam to all our Twitter followers. We are embarrassed by the incident and we apologize to all of our followers, especially the ones that clicked the link in the DM and were caught by the phishing scam themselves. Here's a rundown of the event in the hope that it will help others know what to look out for.

Now that Microsoft have officially released the long awaited Windows 7 Operating System, I thought I'd write a quick blog on WebSpy's current support for Windows 7.

Everything in its own time, if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain, it is always darkest before the dawn – and all other proverbs hinting encouragement and new beginnings. Gartner has just released its latest report, Gartner Perspective: IT Spending 2010, anticipating that our 2008 and 2009 economic recession is finally [...]

Our Middle East Partner, ComGuard, represented WebSpy at GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK the 18th to 22nd of October. On behalf of WebSpy and ComGuard, I would like to thank all GITEX visitors for showing such an overwhelming interest in our products. I’ve been in touch with ComGuard’s Product Manager, Amir Mohsen Abedinifar, who was present at the [...]

WebProNews is an online news site covering the latest developments in search engines, SEO, social media marketing and online advertising and I have been subscribing to them for many odd years. Recently they have been posting interviews, surveys and comments in relation to the use of social media. New research from Robert Half Technology indicates that [...]

In the log file analysis world, we're always dealing with large volumes of data. By default, WebSpy Vantage stores its data, including the storages that you import log files into, somewhere on your c:\ drive. Changing this location to somewhere with more disk space is therefore one of the first steps that customers like to perform, so I thought I'd write a quick blog to explain the locations you should be aware of and how to change them.

Microsoft have announced the availability of Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) Release Candidate (RC). This is the final public release of TMG before it is made available to purchase. If you're considering upgrading your ISA Server to TMG, this means that you can start your deployment using the Release Candidate, and simply switch it to a licenced version with no additional configuration changes once the full release is available.

Today has been a very eventful day. This morning we announced WebSpy’s proposed acquisition of procurement and materials management system provider, Marketboomer. Ever since we let the news slip there has been a steady stream of phone calls, emails and tweets. So, who is Marketboomer and why has WebSpy proposed to acquire them? Marketboomer provides [...]

Anybody who has manually configured their network settings has had to enter a subnet mask, usually in the form of "#.#.#.#". The most familiar subnet value for many is 255.255.255.0, representing that the first three segments of the associated IP address must be the same as another IP address for the other address to match the subnet. The behaviour of this subnet is almost self-evident due to the syntax. However, this syntax can be misleading. What does a subnet of 255.240.0.0 mean? Or the subnet 255.192.0.0? And why is the subnet 255.127.0.0 invalid?

Using public proxies generally involves browsing to a public proxy website to request access to another site, usually blocked or prohibited by organizational policy. When accessing sites in this fashion, firewalls, filtering devices and monitoring solutions are only aware that an employee, or student, has accessed the public proxy site, and not the actual end [...]

Today, I had the pleasure of attending Western Australian Internet Association’s first (out of four) breakfast events. The main topic on the agenda was E-Security and a panel of expert, representing commercial, government and educational bodies, were there to shed a light on the latest developments. The topic of E-Security is rapidly becoming of enormous significance, [...]

Today I received a phone call from one of our clients who had read my previous blog: “How to Benefit from Monitoring Good Web Activity”. This blog is focused on how you can benefit from monitoring internet activity that is not generally perceived as bad, or unproductive. The client, a network administrator at a [...]

Attention all Vantage customers (and triallers). We've just released build 2.2.0.8 as an auto-update. This build includes new features such as scheduled data purge, support for Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway, and scheduling CSV imports into your Organizational structure.

A great feature of Vantage Ultimate is its ability to publish reports and storages to the Web Module so that users can login, view their reports, and analyze data. But no one wants to have to remember yet another username and password combination to login to the Web Module, so make it easy on your users by using Windows Authentication. This way, as long as a user is logged into their Windows machine with their Windows domain username, they will sail straight into the Web Module without being prompted for a username or password.

The benefits of allowing employees monitored Internet access, instead of extensive blocking and filtering, have been explored in previous blogs. In essence, an effective monitoring solution will assist in maximizing employee productivity, identifying download issues, improving network management and minimizing litigation risks. Something of great importance is taking the users of the network you [...]

We recently completed the analysis of our latest software user survey. It is always very exciting to review the results from such a survey since it is one of the best indications on why clients are using our software, where our strengths lies and what we can improve. I would like to take this opportunity to [...]

I just came across something I wanted to share. Socialnomics.com recently posted a very powerful video, “Social Media Revolution”, highlighting figures from Erik Qualman’s book on how social media transform the way we live and do business. Being a part of industry, it comes as no surprise that the popularity of social media is rapidly increasing. [...]

Using Date Modifiers in file masks are a great way to increase the speed of your imports as they remove all the logs you don’t care about from the import list. If you're using WebSpy Vantage, you are probably interested in filtering your log file imports by date (only import files from the month of June for example). The obvious way to do this is to specify a date filter using the filters page in the Input Wizard. The problem is Vantage will still check every record in every log file being imported to see if it matches the date filter. If you have months or years worth of logs in the folder being imported, that's a lot of data that Vantage has to pointlessly sift through. The good news is, if your log files contain the date in their file name, then you can use file masks to instruct Vantage to never touch these unwanted files.

Here's a video I put together demonstrating how to get up and running with a complete monitoring and reporting solution in less than 15 minutes. The video demonstrates three products: WebSpy Sentinel, for complete data capture, WebSpy Live for real time alerts, and WebSpy Analyzer Standard for analysis and reporting.

A few customers have experienced some issues converting their ISA MSDE logs to text format using Microsofts MSDEToText.vbs script for ISA 2006. We've therefore created a modified version of the script that creates compatible log files for WebSpy software.

I was conducting a demonstration the other day on how to use a few tricks in WebSpy Vantage to filter out noise and clutter from web reports. If you have ever looked through the raw list of web sites visited by people in your organization, I'm sure you know what I mean. Watching a single video on YouTube will probably generate a list of about three to five sites such as lax-v41.lax.youtube.com, www.youtube.com, img.youtube.com, and so on. Your list of top sites also probably contains hits to ad servers and tracking servers, such as doubleclick.net, google-analytics.com and imrworldwide.com. All this clutter gets in the way of determining what sites were 'intentionally' visited.

In previous blogs I have covered why internet access is so important in the workplace, why blocking and filtering should be minimized, and why monitoring is preferred. Today I thought I’d focus on the specific benefits of monitoring and reporting on log files. To some it might be obvious, but plenty of search queries used [...]

This is a popular WebSpy article that we decided to re-post. Click here to download pdf version. What can log data do for you? Organisations today are deploying a variety of security solutions to counter the ever increasing threat to their email and Internet investments. Often, the emergence of new threats spawns solutions by different companies [...]

The year was 1996 and young(ish) CEO, Jack Andrys, was racking his brain to come up with the perfect name for his business. It was the early stage of the Internet evolution with a shy number of 36 million users, 0.9% of the population. Not much compared to today’s staggering number of 1,596 million users, [...]

I'm happy to announce the release of Vantage 2.2! All three products in the Vantage range (Premium, Giga and Ultimate) have been update with the following features: Multi-processing, Improved report styles, Updated Aliases and Profiles, Storage Repair Utility, Save / Open Tasks. Obviously, the multi-processing feature is the big one! Many of you (Vantage customers) have been running Vantage on multi-core or multi-cpu machines and just dying for Vantage to grab hold of the CPUs and make them work. You should be happy with this new build.

When talking about monitoring and reporting organizational Internet usage it is often automatically assumed that bad behaviour, security concerns and acute issues are the focus of attention. You want to find out exactly why your bandwidth costs have increased enormously, who is taking advantage of your online resources, what activity can pose a security threat [...]

After blogging about an increase in Australian employers blocking social network access it is refreshing to see a more positive trend. Certain U.S. Army bases, that formerly blocked access to Web 2.0 sites, now permit users to surf to sites such as Facebook and Flickr. The Army has ordered its network managers to give soldiers [...]

A couple of weeks ago I posted a blog regarding Microsoft's upcoming Beta 3 release of Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) which will be replacing Microsoft ISA server. Well, it's now been released and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.

We are happy to announce that all existing WebSpy clients, and prospective clients, are presented with a unique opportunity to participate in a workplace internet leisure browsing (WILB) study carried out by Dr Brent Coker from the University of Melbourne. Dr Brent Coker is seeking organizations who would be interested in participating in a study to examine how WILB affects their employees’ productivity. Initial evidence from suggests WILB in certain circumstances can result in improved productivity.

We are very excited to announce we are sponsoring two very insightful, high quality and popular podcasts: This Week in Startups (TWiST) and Martin Bailey Photography Podcast (MBP Podcast) TWiST features entrepreneur Jason Calacanis and a rotating group of guest experts who bring you a weekly take on the best, worst, most outrageous and interesting from the [...]

Figures from Australia’s major communications company, Telstra, shows there has been a three-fold increase in Australian employers blocking social network sites in the space of 10 months. During the same period the total number of URLs normally allowed at work has decreased by 58%. Do these figures mean that employers are cutting back workplace Internet access? [...]

Both Microsoft and Google have recently introduced new privacy features to their Internet browsers IE8 and Chrome. Undoubtedly some employers are concerned that these new browser features will lead to an increase in “undetected” recreational browsing by employees.

It sounds like Threat Management Gateway (TMG), the new re-branded version of ISA Server, has been a popular topic at this years TechEd event in the US. According to the latest blog from TMG's Product Unit Manager, David B. Cross, Beta 3 will be released in the next couple of weeks. As for the full release, David says that they are still on track for Q4 this calendar year.

Imagine you've just spent the last six months setting up storages, aliases, profiles, scheduled tasks and so on, and you need to migrate all this to another machine. Of course you could go to the Aliases screen and click 'Save Aliases', then go to the new machine and click 'Open Aliases', and repeat for every setting you want to move across. But there is an easier way.

Diagnostic Tracing is a way to find out the details of what Vantage does when performing a variety of actions such as importing logs, generating a report, and so on. Sometimes an error may occur during these actions, and the error presented to the user can often be cryptic and meaningless. Tracing shows the steps that led up to an error, and shows far more detail about the error itself that the dialog presented to the user.

We've been doing some work of late to make Vantage take advantage of multi-cpu and multi-core processors. It looks like we've improved the performance of importing more than one log file by around 50%, and the most common reporting scenarios by around 30%. Before we release this build into the wild, I'd like to give it as much field testing as possible. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this build...

We’ve issued a bunch of auto updates for nearly all WebSpy products today Of particular note is a fix to the Vantage range: · Fix: Improved partition matching when filtering by a date range This will benefit you if you're running reports with a date range filter such as last week or yesterday (which is pretty much everyone), and are using the default storage partitioning scheme of "Date" (again... pretty much everyone).

WebSpy today announced the remarkable success of their recently implemented e-commerce initiative. In the beginning of February 2009 WebSpy joined forces with e-commerce service provider Avangate to facilitate secure online purchases of Analyzer Standard, WebSpy’s SMB Internet monitoring and reporting software. WebSpy also enabled partners and online shopping sites to incorporate Avangate’s e-commerce links into their websites and receive a commission on every sale linked from their site. “Our e-commerce initiative has proven to be an immediate success for a number of reasons.” says WebSpy’s CEO, Jack Andrys. “Monthly Analyzer Standard leads have increased by 30% and new online affiliate requests, from resellers and download sites wanting to promote our software, are steadily increasing.”

WebSpy today announced its intent to push the sales of internet reporting solution, WebSpy Analyzer Standard, through online software resellers and download sites. WebSpy has joined forces with e-commerce service provider Avangate to make their new online purchase platform available for other parties. By registering as a WebSpy Online Affiliate, software resellers are able to incorporate Avangate’s e-commerce links into their websites and receive commission from every sale, directly or indirectly, linked from their site.

Microsoft Virtual PC synchronizes the time between the guest and host operating systems. This is great until you have the need to set the clock forward or backwards in your VM, as it snaps back to the current time after about 5 seconds. I went hunting through the options in the Virtual PC UI but didn't find anything related to disabling this option. A bit of googling later and I've got it disabled by adding a few lines of XML to the .vmc file.

We’ve made a modification to Analyzer’s Sophos loader so that it takes the value from the action field to determine blocked/allowed. The fix can be applied to WebSpy Analyzer Giga 2.3, Analyzer Premium 4.3 or Analyzer Standard 4.3

Today I've been poking at Microsoft Exchange 2007 tracking logs, asking them the very simple question of 'How many emails have I sent?'. Unforunately, Exchange 2007 tracking logs are not used to simple questions, and are likely to return a complicated and / or misleading answer. But the confusion it seems, all comes down to definitions. Once you understand these definintions, things start to make a bit more sense.

WebSpy has today announced further strengthening in the dedication to its channel with the launch of its new global partner program. The partner program is available to distributors and resellers globally with a particular focus on European channel development. “Many European countries are experiencing rapid IT sector growth and it is imperative for WebSpy to work [...]

We’ve recently added two new features to WebSpy Vantage (all flavours) to deal with a specific issue setting up automated importing tasks using date modifiers in file masks. A common setup is to have a task that creates a storage each month, then a separate task that runs at the end of each day – say [...]

I'm frequently asked about the best way to setup and report on file or folder accesses. In other words, I have a bunch of confidential files sitting on my network and I want to know who is accessing them. So here it is (you might want to grab a coffee first!).