News

This year, Smart-Soft hired an exciting new team to bring to market two novel products that will become the core of our line next year. We have had a successful year this year. We gained Microsoft Silver Partner status and became the only Microsoft-certified developer of UTM solutions in Russia. Apart from that, Traffic Inspector successfully completed Russian-based FSTEK certification process. We are confident about our future. Even with gloomy economic outlook and the expected crisis, Traffic Inspector preserves its competitive edge and is a unique software solution in our country, and what we have to do now is keeping track of and reacting to changes in legislation in a timely manner and also building new strategic partnerships. Andrei Davidovich, CEO of Smart-Soft

The new Traffic Inspector features a PHP-based Web Portal and optimized reports. Currently available reports include: Internet usage reports (traffic by users, hourly and daily traffic, bandwidth consumption), network statistics, current connections, Web Filtering, Web Proxy, malware inspection, spam filtering reports. 

Traffic Inspector now tracks all user attempts to access the Internet and uses that information to create user account templates. The administrator can then turn these templates into full-fledged accounts in just a couple of mouse clicks. The new mechanism will make the process of populating the program with user accounts more flexible and convenient. Preventing access to unwanted web resources is one of the classical tasks accomplished with Traffic Inspector. In the not-so-distant past, the very fact that access to a certain website was prevented was not easily obvious. 

Traffic Inspector 3.0.2 solves this issue by displaying appropriate information via a separate tab in User Monitor facility. Traffic Inspector 3.0.2 features a new administrative “Monitor” role as part of its multi-level administrative access system. The role only provides access to the report subsystem while prohibiting access to program settings. 

The installation file for Traffic Inspector 3.0.2 is much smaller due to the decision to remove certain components related to Traffic Inspector Anti-Virus and Traffic Inspector Anti-Spam. These components are instead downloaded on demand when a user tries to configure them via Traffic Inspector interface.

Smart-Soft, a leading vendor of network security and access control solutions, announced that it has renewed its Silver partner status for Application Development, demonstrating its consistent capability, commitment and expertise.

The Microsoft Silver partner status for Application Development showcases the company's ability to produce Microsoft Windows 8-compatible solutions and the professionalism of its Microsoft-certified developers.

Smart-Soft and Microsoft have built up a close partnership over the past 9 years, resulting in a series of successful Windows-based solutions for network security and Internet access control. In 2009 Smart-Soft participated in the Microsoft Partner of the Year event. Our company was honored as Partner of the Year and also received a finalist nomination in the Software Solutions in Central and Eastern Europe category. All new versions of Smart-Soft’s core product, Traffic Inspector, pass Microsoft certification to ensure seamless integration and reliable operation with the Windows family of operating systems.

• Checking sender IP addresses in DNS-based Blackhole Lists.
• Checking for spam URLs in the message body using the SURBL technology (Spam URI Real-time Block List).
• Verifying senders using Sender Policy Framework (SPF).
• Checking for typical attributes of spam messages (size, format, distorted sender address, excessive number of intended recipients, etc.).
• Signature analysis. Checking for known spam patterns.
• Linguistic heuristics. Scanning for words and phrases typical of spam messages.  
• Checking for graphic spam.
• Real-time UDS requests (Urgent Detection System).

Recently the results of the independent research “Russia’s IT Security Market” have been announced to the general public. The main goal of the research is to provide relevant information on the Russian IT software market today. For more than 8 months 13 experts studied various areas of the IT market and prepared reports independently of each other. The research includes new findings and information not previously published.

According to the research findings, a Russian IT company Smart-Soft with its core product Traffic Inspector has made it to the Top-20 of the leading IT security vendors. Smart-Soft’s market share in 2012 was on par with that of some the well-established VPN vendors including S-Terra, McAfee, Sophos, WatchGuard. 

Mikhail Romanov, the expert on network security systems, vulnerability and compliance management systems and two-factor authentication appliances, writes in his report: “A product called Traffic Inspector has recently caught my attention. While technically being a firewall, the program has many traffic management functions. Program developers managed to find a niche where the product can be developed without experiencing direct competition from other well-known companies (e.g. Cisco Systems). The program complements many security solutions by implementing functionality that none of them is capable of. The results are quite interesting: Smart-Soft has sold more than 55,000 copies of the software over the course of 9 years. The vendor pays a lot of attention to certification compliance (specifically, the Russian FSTEC certification process) and is constantly updating the product to include new features. The program has also been available as part of a hardware appliance for some time now. Overall, the product is a full-fledged firewall that meets all modern requirements.” 

• General Questions (information on Traffic Inspector, program key features and benefits)
• Licensing and Activation (licensing options, license upgrade, updates and tech support)
• Installation and Configuration (initial program setup and configuration)
• Troubleshooting common problems

Traffic Inspector network monitoring software has a number of advantages for users:

• Monitoring Internet traffic and network users. You can control Internet access, user activity, and internet connections, remotely manage the network and obtain detailed statistics.

• Improved productivity for your business. You can increase employee productivity by blocking unwanted sites, ads and media content. Control the connection speed and network bandwidth and conserve traffic by assigning limits and schedules.

• Reliable firewall. You get protection from viruses, spyware, hackers and spam with a built-in proxy server, an additional Kaspersky anti-virus module and a locking and alarm system that reacts to excessive network activity.

Traffic Inspector is a useful tool for users who need to control their network.