You may not yet be aware of this but if your web site has links to external web pages, then they may be, at any time, made to point to inappropriate content that is often adult in nature. How does this happen? If a company allows its rights to its domain name to lapse, even briefly, then cyberpirates can snap it up and then make the address point to new content of their choosing. They do this to drive traffic to their websites, the practice is common and is called "porn-napping".

Consider this scenario : your company has a link to an entirely appropriate external web site that is hijacked and made to point to new, inappropriate and possibly offensive content. You cannot control what happens to an external web site, so this may happen on any day of the week and at any time of the day. Now consider a potential customer or client (or their child) is surfing on your website and your external link directs them to this pornographic site. You will very likely have an offended and angry and customer on your hands.

Why should you make XShield part of your organization's internet security toolbox?

If you had been using XShield, it is not likely that you would be finding this out from an angry customer email. Instead you could have been monitoring the status of your links and XShield could have alerted you to any content changes that were inappropriate. XShield can scan automatically in the background throughout the day and even send automatic email alerts to your IT personnel to enable a quick response to any problems that may develop.

Here are some key features of "XShield Professional":

￭ Scanning ￭ XShield lets you scan your internal or external websites and will check them for inappropriate material like gambling, violent language or pornography. Even legitimate web sites may use language that your organization may not wish to be associated with.

￭ Broken Link Reporting ￭ In addition to scanning web site content, XShield will also report on any broken or redirected links that you have so that you may keep your web site looking current and professional.

￭ HTML Common Bug Checker ￭ As well, it has an HTML bug checking feature that will alert you to the most common HTML errors or problems that web developers make.

￭ Auto-scheduler ￭ The scanning can be performed either manually or automatically at any time of the day.

￭ Email Alerts ￭ XShield will automatically send email alerts if a positive finding is made. The email can be tailored to be easily read on an email-enabled PDA or cell phone so that your web site administrator can be alerted at any time, anywhere.

￭ User Dictionary ￭ Do you have unique keywords or phrases that you want to search for? Keywords like confidential document or private information? Using XShield you can scan for keywords such as these and it will help you to reduce the risk of an employee inadvertantly posting private and confidential information to the internet for the whole world to see?

￭ Report Generation ￭ It will generate reports that are professional in appearance and in HTML format so that you can easily surf to any links that are causing problems.

￭ Integrated Platform ￭ XShield is an integrated platform that contains at its heart a fully functional web browser so that you may navigate through your company's web site and also investigate any external links that you may have without leaving the application.

￭ Hidden Links and Hidden Text ￭ XShield will be able to find any hidden links or buried text on your site or an external site so that you can have total knowledge of the contents of any page (hidden links are links that have the same color as the screen background so that they are essentially invisible unless your cursor hovers over them. Sometimes people with access to a website will place these types of links on a site for access to web pages that may not meet management approval).

￭ Free Dictionary Definition Updates ￭ As with virus scanning technology, protecting against cyber-pirates is much like an arms race. With XShield Professional you will get free updates to your dictionary definition files, without expiry.

Limitations:

￭ 30 day trial period