Easy Protection with Forcepoint Web Security
November 04, 2019

Easy Protection with Forcepoint Web Security

Junie Johwa | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Forcepoint Web Security

It is used across the organisation. It addresses web security for our users and allows certain departments to be able to access certain categories of websites (e.g. PR has access to Facebook while others don't). It enables Internet usage and bandwidth usage to be measured easily and to keep track to see if any additional bandwidth for staff is needed.

Pros

  • Check bandwidth usage, e.g "bandwidth vampires"
  • Control internet access with policies
  • Robust reporting!
  • Easy to use interface and very user-friendly "User Administrative" interfaces
  • Extremely stable and no sudden issues

Cons

  • Complete Active Directory integration. Users have to be manually removed if they have been deleted on Active Directory, therefore you can have some users who still exist but have been deleted from Active Directory and consume licenses
  • Some configurations are only available via Linux CLI which can be intimidating for Windows or "GUI users" on the appliance configurations
  • There are three parts of the system and some people don't know that and that can be confusing, i.e. Web Security, Content Management Gateway and Appliance Management. It can be simplified to be one system or at least have it be more obvious that there are three "parts"
  • Some sites struggle to be accessed and some have to be "bypassed" because of some known issues with the sites
  • Control of internet usage with organisational policies.
  • Secure internet access for users even when not in the office network.
  • Have a management view of how the internet is used in the organisation, e.g productivity versus productivity loss.
It downloads database updates more frequently therefore always on the lookout for threats. Easy to use policy assignment. More robust reporting and able to keep records for many years. It doesn't have deep analysis of links on a page.
The web interface wasn't user friendly and not "straight forward."
It is very appropriate when dealing with sites such as Office365 as you don't have to "open" any related sites which are many. You don't have to do any configuration for access to Office365 sites/applications. It is appropriate for scenarios where an organisation has users with different needs in terms of Internet access e.g PR users having access to social media sites and other departments not having access, Technical divisions having access to YouTube and other streaming sites while other departments do not. It is very appropriate in terms of reporting Internet use in the organisation and proper action taken to "bandwidth vampires" which affect the productivity of other users. It is good at reporting as it can keep data for a long time depending how long it is kept (for us it is 3 years) and can be used during IT audits

Using Forcepoint Web Security

410 - They are all Internet users (i.e. all staff) who require protection to access the Internet.
3 - Networking skills
Active Directory
Internet site categorization
Web Caching fundamentals
Access Control Lists
  • Secure Internet Access anywhere
  • Protection of organisation machines/laptops regardless of location
  • Control of Internet Usage
  • Identify losses in productivity
  • Different user Internet access needs catered for
  • Identify unproductive users.
  • Identify Internet "bandwidth vampires" which affect other users' Internet speed which could be for the organization's productivity.
  • Able to identify a user's IP Address on the system (real-time access tab by hovering on their name) to be able to identify their machines for support by Help Desk.
  • Use in IT audits (e.g how many threats within a time frame were blocked, what are the top users being blocked etc.).
  • Add the Advanced Malware Protection Module to add another layer of security.
  • Increase the number of users who use laptops to further use the Hybrid deployment where the web security policies still apply everywhere and anywhere regardless of your Internet connection.
It is very stable, the organisation has "locked in" the product and has no plans to change or try another product. We have already renewed our 2019-2020 licenses. It is user friendly and people catch on easily when they first use it. The only downtime is when we install Microsoft updates!
It has excellent reporting which help in determining how the organisation's Internet is used and also during both internal and external IT audits.

Evaluating Forcepoint Web Security and Competitors

Not Sure
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
Product Features, the organisation being able to provide IT audit reports, control and manage Internet usage,identify anomalities on Internet access and better troubleshooting if there are any issues. To be honest the organisation made the right decision as we don't struggle with the product as it is stable and hardly a problem!
Look at the pricing of the product and licensing fees. As much as it is the best decision the organisation has made regarding it's features and stability the licensing I think is a bit expensive for us.

Forcepoint Web Security Implementation

Research known issues with upgrading from the Support Knowledge base, this will enable you avoid road blocks along the way and reduce your dependence on Forcepoint Support
  • Third-party professional services
It was first done by Netfusion for the initial setup which was up to 7.8.4 and for the upgrade from 7.8.4 to 8.5.0 was done by Performanta and they are now our prefered vendor as they are certified Forcepoint Partners
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - I'll be talking about the upgrade as I was there: It takes many stakeholders to make things happen. We needed cooperation of other departments as this upgrade impacted the whole staff of Mascom Wireless and it took three days which required no Internet for staff in the evening. This resulted in users understanding the reason for the upgrade and there were no complaints as a result of this
  • First night the upgrade failed and had to seek Forcepoint Support help
  • There were known issues in the upgrade that were not researched prior to the upgrade
  • The upgrade took longer than anticipated (as the first night it failed and we rolled back)

Forcepoint Web Security Support

The is a quick first response to acknowledge your issue and the Engineers never take more than two hours to fix an issue and we hardly get issues looking at the fact that the system is pretty stable. There is also a robust Knowledge Base in the site for known problems.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
Yes - Because not all three of us are actual specialist of the product and if there are issues that we fail to resolve (quickly) then we escalate to Forcepoint Support who offer a good 2nd level support and this makes issue resolution turnaround times less.
When suddenly all users were being resolved by IP Address instead of Active Directory usernames, this made policies assigned to users not apply as the system apply policies to users by Active Directory username. Users were complaining that they were being blocked on sites they normally access and the issue was resolved and answered very quickly (didn't log the call by phone by the way) by Forcepoint Support. It was quickly determined that the service account which made the Active Directory usernames resolution was changed the day before (not realising that it was going to affect the Forcepoint Web Security). We immediately reverted the changes we made to the service account and everything returned to normal

Using Forcepoint Web Security

Despite the intimidating Linux CLI when you use the appliance for troubleshooting, the web security usability compensates as most of the Administration of the system is done there. It is GUI based and has an easy to use UI where one can navigate around rather easily like getting reports, checking alerts, looking the whole setup under deployment to check if all services are running in one place though there are other parts to the system.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
None
  • Getting Reports
  • Assigning User Policy
  • Monitoring system perfomance and using module perfomance dashboards
  • Troubleshooting user access policy issues
  • Able to determine issues whether it is the Internet or the product having problems
  • Knowing that the system has three parts; appliance, web security and content management gateway
  • Having to sometimes use a Linux shell on the when you are more skewed to Windows. Most troubleshooting tools on the appliance are Linux CLI based
  • When a user is deleted in Active Directory, you have to delete that person again on Forcepoint Web Security

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