Nothing stands still in cyberspace. From the time the first packet made the transit from one lab to some other, the infrastructure that fostered the Internet and gave birth to the World Wide Web has been undergoing steady, progressive change. Such is also the case for web security. IT administrators tasked with giving their organizations the communication benefits of a worldwide network, while countering a regular succession of evolving threats, realize that the phrase eternal vigilance is a lot more than empty rhetoric. Threats are countered. New threats arise. Small- to mid-sized businesses specifically may lack the internal expertise to recognize and cope with the newest concerns in the rapidly changing security landscape.

Adapting to the changing nature of security threats requires first identifying the paths of greatest risk, the kinds of transactions susceptible to theft or exposure and the potential mechanisms by which hackers or intruders might get access to information. A similarly relevant concern is identifying and preventing the activities by which insiders might abuse network resources, access information that is legally leakedsource prohibited by age or policy, or inadvertently expose other network users to circulating viruses or malware. The effectiveness of a net security solution may be measured by success in accomplishing these goals in a fashion that will not disrupt daily business operations or place an undue burden on the organization's personnel, partners, or customer base.

There is a wide range of approaches to web security, from strengthening end points using client-based software to fortifying the firewall by adding additional gateway functionality to seal out emerging risks. This paper describes the features of a centrally managed approach enabled by an all-in-one security gateway that will also enhance and complement existing measures. Using tools developed to counter today's most critical web access issues and applying them consistently across the corporation offers many advantages over clientbased solutions that may possibly not be uniformly deployed or may be circumvented by users. This paper also discusses the advantages of consolidating web security mechanisms within an easily deployable hardware appliance or perhaps a convenient, selfcontained virtual appliance (running under VMware). The deployment and maintenance of web security measures can alone be a costly, resourcedraining activity if implemented in a piecemeal, uncoordinated manner.