F-Secure Safe Links Makes Life Easier for Website Owners Hosting User-Generated Content

SAN JOSE, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 06/08/11 -- Today website owners, bloggers and forum administrators are faced with many security concerns that can get in the way of what they really want to be doing -- which is producing interesting and valuable content. Being on guard against the spam, trolls, harmful and unwanted links in user-generated web content that can lead to reputation loss or lost bandwidth presents an additional headache which site owners can well do without.

Harmful links are particularly an issue on sites serving user generated content, where just one bad link can hurt a site's reputation and even lead to blacklisting by search engines.

F-Secure Safe Links offers site owners a time-saving free tool against the disreputable links that can lead visitors to fraud, scams and malware. Safe Links automatically analyzes each link for each page load by accessing F-Secure's real-time cloud-based reputation service, which is constantly collecting information about dangerous sites around the world. It informs site visitors whether the links on the site are safe or not with a simple color-coded system.

The service is being piloted together with a few web service providers, including Suomi24, the biggest web community in Finland. Suomi24's Jarno Alastalo says, "We want to constantly improve the quality and safety of our service for our users, and the opportunity to pilot F-Secure Safe Links beta to help F-Secure develop the service further suits this goal perfectly."

Pirkka Palomäki, CTO from F-Secure says, "While Facebook and Twitter have become the focus for social media security issues, it is important to remember that harmful links affect all sites with user-generated content, whether they are high profile or not. Safe Links is an easy and effective way for owners of blogs, forums and other sites and web services to protect readers and safeguard their good reputation. Site owners no longer have to spend valuable time worrying about harmful links."

See the live Safe Links demo site: http://safelinksdemo.blogspot.com/

Free beta program -- help us to help you

As a beta program Safe Links is a free service, a partnership that benefits site owners and helps F-Secure learn more about their concerns and needs going forward. Joining the beta program is quick and easy. Simply click the link below and sign up for your free account.

Sign up for the service here:
http://www.f-secure.com/en_EMEA-Labs/beta-programs/home-users-beta/safelinks/

F-Secure greatly appreciates feedback from all site owners, so we encourage you to fill out the survey available at the site owner's portal.

A short technical introduction

When a site owner registers for the service, it generates a uniquely identified JavaScript code that can be inserted in any site's HTML code. The site owner can be notified immediately by email if harmful links appear on the site. The analysis takes place in F-Secure's cloud service and in the browsing client, so there is no extra load on the site's web servers. It is easy to access the site's settings and statistics through the site owner's portal, and to take action if harmful links appear.

F-Secure -- Protecting the irreplaceable
While you concentrate on what is important to you, we make sure you are protected and safe online whether you are using a computer or a smartphone. We also backup and enable you to share your important files. Our services are available through over 200 operators around the world and trusted in millions of homes and businesses. Founded in 1988, F-Secure is listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd.
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