With April being Child Abuse Awareness Month, businesses in South Africa should more than ever be doing their bit to combat the scourge of child abuse images on the Web.
The vast majority of companies around the world and locally have tools and technologies in place to fight various types of cyber crime, from malware and phishing to ransomware and even the more advanced threats. However, these crimes are not the only danger. “There are more heinous crimes than stealing money or proprietary information, which aim at exploiting children through sourcing, viewing and sharing images of child sex abuse,” says Lauren Wain, GM at Credence Security.
Although most people think these vile individuals are few and far between, statistics tell a very different story, says Wain. “According to the UN, around 750 000 people are looking at this disgusting type of image at any given time.”
She says Credence Security, together with NetClean, helps ISPs, businesses, and law enforcement to stop the handling, downloading or distribution of child sexual abuse content through the distribution and promotion of NetClean’s suite of products. “Child sex abuse is rife. It pervades every level of society, and happens wherever these individuals can connect to the Web. In fact, between one and two people per thousand are estimated to use their workstations at the office to look at and disseminate this type of image.”
Even more chilling, says Wain, is that there are about 5-million images, featuring some 100 000 children doing the rounds in deviant online trading networks as we speak – a number that is being added to daily. In fact, between 2002 and December 2012, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children’s child victim identification programme has reviewed and analysed over 80-million child sexual abuse images.
“Most heart-breaking of all, is that only around 3% of these minors are ever identified, and only a handful of perpetrators are arrested annually, and each of these commit over 100 offenses against children before being caught.”
She explains that NetClean was founded with the aim of fighting this dreadful scourge, and to date its products have been used by millions worldwide, including organisations and internet service providers in multiple countries.
NetClean ProActive detects, identifies and blocks child sexual abuse images and videos in real-time, and by comparing existing imagery, can detect a single photo or video, both from internet and USB devices, in contrast to web filters that only block prohibited addresses. The NetClean ProActive Appliance is a stand-alone appliance that blocks the access, viewing and sharing of child sexual abuse content on networks, regardless of source and network protocol.
The appliance compares all images with those classified by law enforce¬ment using the NetClean FileDNA technology to ensure that only child sexual abuse images are blocked. Its unique architecture enables it to quickly and accurately block child sexual abuse content without impact¬ing bandwidth, with the possibility to stop both the downloading and sharing of illegal files.
NetClean WhiteBox is a router-based solution for block¬ing child sexual abuse content URLs in high performance net¬works without affecting the ISP-core. Available as a cloud service from NetClean or as an appliance setup, the NetClean WhiteBox system is designed for ISPs and carriers who wish to block access to web sites containing child sexual abuse content. The system can be used to block unwanted web access throughout networks or even groups of networks such as across multiple ISPs within a country or a region.
“The NetClean products find the people who watch child sexual abuse material, the perpetrators who commit these acts, and save children from ongoing and future sexual abuse,” Wain adds.