Apparatus and methods for providing proxy and security services to one or
more users via a publicly accessible network (e.g. the Internet) are
disclosed Upon receiving a user request for content residing at a
third-party location, a security server(s) retrieves the requested
content from the third-party location, and monitors the retrieved content
for suspected malicious code, which may be removed from the retrieved
content before serving to the user. According to exemplary embodiments,
the security server(s) is further operative to route value-added content
to the user, for example, value-added content retrieved from various
network sources. In some embodiments, this value-added content is
associated with the request content from the third-party location.
Exemplary value-added content includes but is not limited to
advertisements (e.g. targeted advertisements), sponsored links,
additional content mark-up, etc. Although the presently-disclosed service
may be provided to any user, in exemplary embodiments, the service is
provide selectively to pre-registered and/or authenticated subscribed
users.