News

All For A Good Cause: Not-For-Profits Capitalise on Social Media
2011-12-12 13:56

 

 

The emergence of social media over the last five years has seen a fundamental shift in how we communicate and work with one another.

This white paper examines some of the legal, HR, compliance and technology issues that need to be addressed and overcome before NFPs should consider adopting social media as a means of promoting their various causes. Critical to any social media implementation is a complete technology and process audit to ensure organisations have the necessary security and control technologies and procedures to manage internet traffic on and off the network no matter what the device.

Download the White Paper (976KB)

Grace Christian School Safe with SecurED
2011-11-17 11:27

November 2011

Grace Christian School is providing its students and staff with a safe and secure IT environment with a SecurED solution from Netbox Blue. The solution features highly advanced Category Web Filtering and Zero Day Anonymous Proxy Prevention to ensure complete internet compliance. The solution delivers total protection against today’s challenges as well as unique social networking safeguards that will continue to protect the school into the future. 

 
“It’s an excellent product,” IT Manager, Garry Hewett says. “It has solved our IT issues and has a much more user-friendly interface than other products we looked at.”


The school needed to replace several outdated devices. It decided to consolidate its solutions to provide complete security against the current threats as well as the challenges that the school might face in the future with laptops, MacBooks and social media. The school was also looking for a solution that would be cost effective and easy to use and manage.

Grace Christian School decided to trial Netbox Blue’s SecurED solution because it was an all-in-one solution with advanced features that promised to efficiently deal with anonymous proxies and encrypted websites and was able to filter access to social networking sites.


“It covered our needs and came with good product reviews and recommendations,” Mr Hewett says.


The SecurED solution delivers a complete suite of security and management features that include a firewall, email and URL filtering, reporting, as well as social network monitoring and controls. The solution has the added bonus of LAN segregation. Students and teachers are effectively on separate networks for external access bringing massive security and management advantages. It is also planned for staff members to have secure access to the school’s resources while outside the network with an easy-to-use VPN capability.


“The solution appears to be very stable with excellent reporting of the state of the interfaces,” Mr Hewett says. “We never knew our ADSL fluctuated so much before the Netbox!”
 
“The filtering products are quite sophisticated,” Mr Hewett says. “And the solution is relatively easy to learn and use.”


Grace Christian School now has a consolidated internet and email security and management solution that covers all of their current needs and is able to grow with the school as it moves towards a 1:1 student to laptop ratio. The SecurED solution provides total control over the network at school and will also eventually be rolled out on mobile devices. It can also deliver complete control over social networking with SafeChat® if the school decides to make use of this growing area of the internet.


 “The product does everything we expected of it,” Mr Hewett says. “The Netbox Blue staff are helpful and the solution is excellent.”


About Grace Christian School
Grace Christian School is located at Bunbury in Western Australia, and is a member of the Christian Schools Australia network. It provides a Christ-centred education to students from Kindergarten to Year 12. The school has a strong academic focus, while aiming to develop and nurture a Christian worldview. Grace has a progressive attitude towards IT deployment, but maintains strict policies on internet use and the security of students online is an absolute priority.

About Netbox Blue
Netbox Blue is a leading provider of innovative internet compliance, management and security solutions. Netbox Blue provides organisations with unique, real-time social media analysis and controls with predictive outcomes and benefits. The company owns granted patents around this unique technology and has other patents in the process of being granted. The company was established in 1999, is privately held and is based in Australia. It has a presence in over 19 countries and has partnerships and distribution agreements with some of the world's largest IT companies.

   
For more information please contact: Gita Raikar, Promotions Coordinator, Netbox Blue gita [dot] raikar [at] netboxblue [dot] com

Available for interview:
Garry Hewett, IT Manager, Grace Christian School ghewett [at] grace [dot] wa [dot] edu [dot] au
Pippa Burns, Regional Manager, Netbox Blue pippa [dot] burns [at] netboxblue [dot] com

Global Marketing Manager, Peter Geale, joins IT thought leader - Netbox Blue
2011-10-18 14:12

October 2011

Global Marketing Manager Peter Geale is the latest to join the management team of award winning IT innovator and thought leader - Netbox Blue. Peter Geale will head the company’s marketing department with a focus on all marketing operations and continue to build and strengthen the Netbox Blue brand in the global IT security and social media management arena.

Peter Geale has more than 25 years’ experience in sales and marketing roles across the Information and Communications Technology industry in Brisbane, Sydney and Boston. His work has spanned varying sized businesses from start-up firms to large multinational firms including companies such as Hewlett Packard, CITEC, Stallion, Anixter and Pivit.

Peter joins Netbox Blue as Global Marketing Manager at a critical time in the company’s development. The Brisbane-based firm is poised to extend its market presence in the Australian and international marketplace to meet the growing internet security imperative for business, government and education.  Netbox Blue's innovative and patented technologies protect the reputation of its customers by ensuring they can leverage the power of the Internet in their organisation while ensuring their online safety.

Peter remarked that “Netbox Blue is an innovative Australian company with a growing suite of products and services that well and truly ‘punch above their weight’ in the global marketplace.  I’m looking forward to working with my new Netbox Blue colleagues and our customers to grow the company’s market presence”.

With the appointment of Peter Geale, the company is facilitating continued growth and expansion in domestic and international markets through increased international marketing activity, partner growth and greater brand exposure.


“It is fantastic to have Peter Geale on board to take Netbox Blue marketing to new heights. Peter will be tasked with management of our global brand, launching our new products and the rollout of our revitalised global partner programme”, Netbox Blue General Manager for Australia & NZ, Ross Hanson says.


Netbox Blue is a leading provider of innovative internet compliance, management and security solutions. Netbox Blue provides organisations with unique, real-time social media management technology to enable organisations to manage the risks of social media use in business. The company owns granted patents around this unique technology and has other patents in the process of being granted. The company was established in 1999, is privately held and is based in Australia. It has a presence in over 19 countries and has partnerships and distribution agreements with some of the world’s largest IT companies.


For more information contact: Gita Raikar, Promotions Coordinator, Netbox Blue gita [dot] raikar [at] netboxblue [dot] com

Available for interview:
Peter Geale, Global Marketing Manager, Netbox Blue peter [dot] geale [at] netboxblue [dot] com
Ross Hanson, General Manager- Australia and New Zealand, Netbox Blue ross [dot] hanson [at] netboxblue [dot] com
 


Netbox Blue Borderless Internet Compliance Agent awarded IIA Family Friendly Filter status
2010-05-06 11:27

Australian IT innovator, Netbox Blue, has been awarded Family Friendly Filter status by the Internet Industry Association (IIA) for its new BIC Agent.

The BIC Agent (previously known as the Laptop Protector) allows schools and businesses to control web browsing, media streaming and the language used on the most common social networking sites, instant messaging, chat and webmail applications on school and company-owned laptops and other devices, even when outside the network.

“To qualify for IIA Family Friendly Filter status, a filter must undergo rigorous independent testing to ensure that it meets the criteria as set out in the IIA Codes,” IIA Chief Executive, Peter Coroneos says. “These include effectiveness, ease of use, configurability, availability of support and agreement by the filter company to update the filter as required by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. We are pleased to recognize Netbox Blue’s BIC Agent for meeting those criteria.”  

“The IIA is committed to fostering family friendly ways of dealing with inappropriate internet content, cyber bullying and misuse of social networking sites. The Family Friendly Filter program is an important initiative for keeping Australians secure online. We applaud companies like Netbox Blue for offering internet users a safer internet environment,” Mr Coroneos says.

The independent testing was conducted by Enex TestLab.

“We are pleased to see Netbox Blue continuing to deliver innovative technology,” Enex TestLab Managing Director Matt Tett says. “The solution they have designed is easy to use and will be very successful.”

“The BIC Agent is the only solution like it that we have tested to date. It is ideally suited to schools and businesses who want centralized control over their laptop fleet – regardless of how these are accessing the internet.”

Netbox Blue Chairman John Fison says laptops are a vital tool for schools and business, yet up until now, they have been difficult to control.

“Businesses face major productivity issues, with staff using laptops and other devices outside the network and the potential for reputational damage. Students using laptops and other devices are vulnerable to inappropriate content on web sites and offensive language on social networking sites. Privacy is also a concern: not just data, but also images and potentially video content. Such content may be made available to anyone on the internet,” Mr Fison says.

“To ensure children aren’t exposed to bullying and inappropriate content, schools must control internet and email use on school-owned laptops in the same way that they control these things on their school network.

“The BIC Agent provides a comprehensive, effective and manageable way to control internet and email use on school and company-owned laptops and other devices.”

Installed on laptops and devices and taking policies from the central Netbox settings, the BIC Agent offers the following features:

SafeChat Prevent inappropriate language from popular social networking sites, Instant Messaging and Gmail
Email content Manager Block inappropriate language from all email conversations
Website Manager Control access to particular sites or categories of sites. This can be set up with different rules for different days, or children, giving total flexibility
Time of day Manager Manage the times of day that children or staff are permitted access to the internet
Privacy Manager Prevent personal details such as your address being given out in email or chatroom conversations
Cam Manager Block access to webcam use to prevent predators using this as a tool to communicate with children and for inappropriate footage to be visible to anyone
Reporter and Alarm System Get full visibility of all internet-based activity and alarms to alert parents on any breaches of rules that may be set. This innovative solution is fully password protected and also allows administrators to access reports, alarm settings and policies remotely.

This innovative solution is fully password protected and also allows remote access for an administrator to access reports and alarm settings and to remotely change any policies.

The SecurED BIC Agent works on PCs running Windows XP and Windows 7*.
*Windows 7 32 bit only