SonicWall Content Filtering Service (CFS) Premium Business Edition for the NSA 2650 delivers four years of enterprise-grade web filtering and policy enforcement to protect productivity, meet regulatory requirements, and reduce security risk. Built on a dynamic rating and caching architecture, CFS blocks objectionable and high-risk web content while giving administrators flexible, fine-grained control over Internet access.
Core capabilities
- Granular filtering: Block or allow content by category, URL, domain, IP address, user, group or time-of-day; apply policies to individual users, departments, VLANs or devices.
- Dynamic rating database: Real-time URL, domain and IP ratings are cross-referenced against a continuously updated database to ensure accurate classification and minimal false positives.
- Local caching for performance: URL ratings are stored on the appliance to reduce lookup latency and speed policy enforcement for frequently visited sites.
Policy control & enforcement
Administrators can create local or enterprise-wide policies to meet organizational or legal requirements, including time-based rules and automatic blocking of downloadable file types. When combined with SonicWall Application Intelligence and Control, CFS enables combined URL + application policies and bandwidth controls for high-traffic categories such as streaming media or P2P.
Compliance & reporting
CFS integrates with SonicWall ViewPoint and Global Management System (GMS) to provide rich, graphical reporting and searchable logs—helping organizations satisfy regulations (for example, CIPA for schools and libraries) and internal compliance programs. Reports can be run in real time or historically and exported in multiple formats.
Risk reduction & productivity
By restricting access to inappropriate, malicious or bandwidth-hungry sites, CFS reduces legal exposure, prevents productivity loss from wasteful web surfing, and lowers the risk of malware and spyware infections that commonly originate from blocked categories.
Scalability & ideal deployments
Designed for small businesses through large enterprises, educational institutions, libraries, government agencies and public hotspots, CFS scales to meet complex, distributed environments and centralized management needs.
How it works
When a user requests a web resource, the appliance queries the dynamic rating database and compares the live rating to local policy. The request is allowed or denied instantly based on that policy. The rating database is maintained using automated intelligence and human review and currently covers millions of URLs, IPs and domains with daily updates.
Benefits
- Fast, accurate filtering with low latency
- Flexible, group- and time-based policies
- Bandwidth management and enforcement options
- Integrated reporting to support audits and regulatory needs
- Appliance-based deployment—no separate filtering server required
