"Our global customers include corporate enterprises, telecom operators, mobile operators and government agencies and the requirement was for an extensive URL database flexible enough to be deployed within all of these environments and one that could scale with new business growth,”

- Kelly Anderson, VP of Sales, ISC8

The Problem
ISC8 experienced strong demand for a high performance and cost-effective web filtering solution to help wireless service providers satisfy government regulatory mandates, related to content filtering, as well as to allow for accurate control of network policies and security.

ISC8 identified a number of requirements for a URL database and content categorization engine, including:

• Comprehensive coverage – coverage of a wide range of new and dynamic websites with deep content categorization at the domain, sub-domain, sub-path and page level, most critical deep within blogs, forums and social networks.

• Highly accurate categorizations – an accurate database of categorized URLs backed by human quality assurance review.

• High URL query performance – ISC8 required a content categorization engine capable of categorizing the clickstream of millions of mobile service subscribers with extremely fast query performance.

• Adult content detection – extensive accuracy and coverage of “blockable” adult content to include child abuse sites and materials, anonymizers & proxies, in addition to safe-browsing support.

• Malicious and compromised website detection – provide real-time detection of malicious and compromised websites, particularly those hosting spyware, malware, botnets, phishing, fraud and other exploits. Also important was the ability to quickly revisit and “clear” legit websites after being cleaned.

• Broad languages support – contextual content categorization support of websites in the most popular languages for the Asian, European and North American markets where ISC8 has broad global distribution capabilities.

• Scalability – a SDK implementation capable of scaling up with new business customers – mobile service providers and enterprises – and their millions of subscribers and end-users was required.

• Flexible pricing model – network-wide or per-user pricing options.

• Dedicated support – always available and dedicated technical support during the evaluation, integration and production phases as well as with day-to-day business and technical matters thereafter.