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Anwar_Kapasi_19's avatar
Anwar_Kapasi_19
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Nov 21, 2016

SWG : Predefined URL Categories

Scenario: Let's say there is a predefined category A and category B under SWG URL categories, where iamme.com is part of cat A, and cat A is allowed as per the URL filer while cat B is not.

 

There is an update to URL database, and iamme.com has been re-categorized to cat B (iamme.com is not part of cat A).

 

For discussion, cat A and cat B are predefined in Websense URL DB.

 

Questions: a) How would an organization be notified of such re-categorization ?

 

b) How will SWG URL filter handle this ?

 

Any other insight would be helpful.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

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  • GuyBrownF5_2246's avatar
    GuyBrownF5_2246
    Historic F5 Account
    Feb 09, 2017

    Since we are not talking about custom categories and talking about a website being moved from Category A to Category B by Websense/Forcepoint themselves, then there would be no notification of this occurring.

     

    The SWG URL filter will handle this by applying the policy of Category B to the user.

     

    Even Websense dont provide notification of this type to their users, and its something that would generally only happen when a Website became compromised - for example, news.com was hacked and therefore the website would be moved from the "News and Media" category to the "Compromised Websites" category.

     

    In this example, you would always block "compromised websites" and that action would apply. When the website was fixed and no longer compromised, websense will move it back into the News and Media category which will then be (presumably) allowed.

     

    If you move news.com into a custom category, then this overrides the master database, and even if it was in the blocked category of Compromised Websites it would be allowed if that was the action applied to the custom category.