What is Smoothwall Monitor Managed Service?
Smoothwall Monitor Managed Service protects vulnerable users by analyzing everything they type on their device, alerting you if there is any behaviour you need to be concerned about. It analyzes entered text, in any program or with any encryption.
Monitor Managed Service's unique artificial intelligence continuously builds a profile of users, allowing the system to accurately interpret between a one-off event or a consistent pattern of behaviour. If there is any need for immediate concern about a user, the Smoothwall team will immediately contact you.
How does it work?
Monitor Managed Service captures everything that a user types, which can even include items they subsequently delete. Because it works on keystrokes, Monitor MS looks at the language that’s used, it doesn’t matter what program the user is typing in, or how it’s encrypted.
The captured text is examined by the unique Monitor Managed Service artificial intelligence system, which uses machine learning to determine if there might be a safeguarding issue. Monitor Managed Service continuously builds a profile of users, allowing the system to accurately interpret between a one-off event or a consistent pattern of behaviour.
User profiles are assessed for risk against a number of safeguarding topics. If there’s any danger at all, Monitor Managed Service will take a screenshot, and forward this to an expert human moderation team for immediate analysis. They will contact the organisation in a way appropriate for the type of risk, their age, and type of organisation. For example, language that may be a little inappropriate for a 16-year-old to use may represent a safeguarding risk in a 9-year-old user, and so the action taken will vary accordingly.
How do I install Monitor Managed Service?
Install client software on the device of the user that you want to protect. You can download this directly from Smoothwall and install it with a group policy across a school or organisation. The user can’t see that the client software is present, even if the Monitor Managed Service client is distributed by group policy while they are using the machine. The client will just work the next time the machine is booted.
Monitor Managed Service updates are silent to the user; every time the device boots up it checks for and installs updates if available.
Specific instructions for your operating system can be found within the following links:
What devices can Monitor Managed Service protect on?
Monitor Managed Service is designed for use on Windows 10, Mac OSX and Chromebooks. It is not currently available for Android and iOS.
Does Monitor Managed Service work with all keyboards?
Monitor Managed Service is designed to work with all hardware keyboards, as well as Bluetooth and virtual keyboards. On Windows, ensure that you select the appropriate version for 32 or 64 bit. It doesn't presently support Cortana or Siri inputs.
Do I need a Smoothwall Filter and Firewall?
Whilst existing Smoothwall customers will find Monitor Managed Service a fantastic compliment to their existing Filter and Firewall product, you do not need any other product because it is available as a stand-alone product.
How is Monitor Managed Service text capture triggered?
Once a user starts entering text on a device with the Monitor Managed Service client installed on it, Monitor MS captures that text and every thirty seconds until the user has stopped or performed an action that might mean they have stopped, such as pressing enter or clicking out of an application. If the device is offline, text capture is sent as soon as it reconnects.
How do I know Monitor Managed Service is working?
The Monitor Managed Service administrator portal displays the status of the client on every device that it's installed on. Therefore, your System Administrator can see if the client is not operating on an individual machine as expected and fix it.
Does Monitor Managed Service capture bank details and passwords?
Where possible, Monitor identifies whether a capture contains sensitive data, such as bank details and passwords. If found, Monitor obscures it by replacing it with various symbols such as an asterisk (*).
Monitor can easily identify passwords within browsers because it can analyze and identify page elements, and then change the details in the capture. However, if a page element is not correctly tagged as a password field, Monitor can't identify it correctly during the capture process. This is also true for page elements in non-browser password fields. In these cases, where a password is not clearly identifiable, Monitor runs an algorithm to further attempt to identify and remove sensitive data, but we cannot guarantee that this would find and hide all sensitive data.
Smoothwall is always striving to improve our products and services, and we will continue to work to improve the detection of sensitive data and hide this wherever possible.