09 Content Security Filtering Technologies
09 Content Security Filtering Technologies
Foreword
⚫ With the development of the times, the society has entered the mobile Internet era. Security
threats gradually extend to the application layer. More and more enterprises start to pay
attention to the security of internal information, such as the leakage of core confidential
information. Therefore, the administrator needs to identify risks in service scenarios based
on service security requirements and take corresponding risk control measures. The content
security filtering technology of Huawei firewalls helps enterprises manage and control
content security.
⚫ This course describes the concepts and implementation of content security filtering
technologies on firewalls.
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Objectives
⚫ On completion of this course, you will be able to:
Describe the technical background of the content security filtering technologies.
Describe basic principles of content security filtering technologies.
Master the configuration of content security filtering technologies.
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Contents
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Technical Background of Content Security Filtering Technologies
⚫ With the development of communications, security threats are evolving from simple cyber threats to application
and data security threats. In addition, the requirements for internal service security of enterprises are increasing. It
is a great challenge for enterprises to identify confidential information or illegitimate and low-quality information
in service scenarios, generate alarms, and block such information.
⚫ User behavior management and control is a powerful measure to solve the security problems enterprises are facing.
Deploying content security filtering technologies on Huawei firewalls can help implement refined management and
control on user behaviors.
Enterprise users
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Introduction to Content Security Filtering Technologies
• Content security filtering technologies deployed on Huawei firewalls can be applied to different security protection solutions based
on scenario requirements. These technologies help enterprises manage and control content security while preventing core
information leakage and adverse impacts caused by improper user behaviors.
• The content security filtering technology helps enterprises manage content security and prevent core information leakage.
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▫ DNS Filtering
▫ File Blocking
▫ Data Filtering
▫ Mail Filtering
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Overview of URL Filtering
⚫ The URL filtering function regulates online behaviors by controlling URLs that users can access, thereby permitting
or rejecting users' access to specified web page resources. This function allows enterprises to allocate Internet
bandwidth resources in a refined manner and accurate control employees' Internet access permissions.
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URL Structure
⚫ Each web page on the Internet has a unique identifier, that is, the URL. A URL is a specific address
assigned to each available resource on the network so that the resource can be located or identified.
Therefore, each resource (page, site, document, file, folder) on the Internet has a URL.
⚫ A URL consists of fields such as Protocol, Host, Path, and Parameter.
http://www.example.com:8080/news/education.aspx? name=tom&age=20
URL
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▫ Host: indicates the domain name or IP address of the web server. If the web
server uses a non-standard port (not port 80, for example, 8080), the Host
field also needs to contain the port number, for example,
www.example.com:8080.
▫ Path: indicates the directory or file name on the web server, separated by
slashes (/).
Firewall
Office Area
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Process of URL Filtering
⚫ If the URL filtering function is enabled on the firewall, the firewall performs URL filtering when a user
accesses a network resource using HTTP or HTTPS through the firewall. The process is as follows:
The firewall
If the URL matches
receives an
If the HTTP/HTTPS the whitelist, the If the referer field
HTTP/HTTPS
packet is abnormal, URL is permitted. If matches the
packet and extracts
it is directly the URL matches whitelist, the URL is
the URL
blocked. the blacklist, the permitted.
information from
URL is blocked.
the packet.
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URL Filtering Mode
⚫ When a user's URL access request matches a URL rule, the firewall processes the URL access request
based on the URL filtering mode. URL filtering can be implemented in the following modes:
Low-Reputation or External Dynamic
Blacklist and Whitelist URL Categories
Malicious URL Malicious URL
• The blacklist is a list of • A large number of URLs • URL reputation reflects • The external dynamic
URLs inaccessible to are classified into the reliability of the URL malicious URL list is a
users. different URL categories that a user accesses. text file of some
• The whitelist is a list of to control a certain type After URL reputation malicious URLs released
URLs accessible to users. of websites. detection is enabled, by external official
• URL categories are low-reputation URLs can websites. You can load
• The processing priority be blocked. the external dynamic
of the whitelist is higher classified into predefined
categories and user- • Malicious URLs refer to malicious URL list to
than that of the blacklist. identify and block the
defined categories. URLs containing
malicious information. latest malicious URLs,
• User-defined URL preventing users from
categories take After malicious URL
detection is enabled, new attacks.
precedence over
predefined URL malicious URLs can be
categories. blocked.
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Blacklist and Whitelist URL Categories Low-Reputation or Malicious URL External Dynamic Malicious URL
Firewall
Office Area
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• The blacklist and whitelist are generally used to filter simple and fixed websites.
Compared with URL categories, the blacklist and whitelist have finer category
granularities. When a user requests to access a URL, the device matches the
extracted URL information with the blacklist and whitelist.
▫ If the URL matches the whitelist, the URL request is permitted. For example,
an enterprise allows employees to access only some work-related websites.
To achieve this requirement, you can add some work-related websites to
the whitelist.
▫ If the URL matches the blacklist, the URL request is blocked. For example,
to improve work efficiency of employees and fully utilize network
bandwidth, enterprises need to control online behaviors of employees and
prevent them from accessing entertainment, game, and video websites. To
achieve this requirement, you can add entertainment, game, and video
websites to the blacklist.
Blacklist and Whitelist URL Categories Low-Reputation or Malicious URL External Dynamic Malicious URL
Firewall
Office Area
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• The whitelist for embedded links can be implemented in either of the following
ways:
▫ Use the manually configured referer-host to match the referer field in the
HTTP request. If a match is found, the URL request is permitted. If no
match is found, you can choose whether to match the referer field with all
configured whitelist rules. After matching the referer field against the
whitelist is enabled, the URL request is permitted if the referer field
matches a whitelist rule.
▫ After matching the referer field against the whitelist is enabled, the
configured whitelist is directly used to match the referer field in the HTTP
request. If a match is found, the URL request is permitted.
• The function of matching the referer field against the whitelist is enabled by
default. You can disable this function as required.
Blacklist and Whitelist URL Categories Low-Reputation or Malicious URL External Dynamic Malicious URL
URL Categories
⚫ A large number of URLs can be classified into different categories. A URL category can contain multiple URLs. URL
categories can be used to control a type of websites. URL categories are classified into predefined categories and
user-defined categories. User-defined URL categories take precedence over predefined URL categories.
Predefined URL categories: Huawei maintains a large number of mainstream websites and classifies these websites. These
websites are embedded in the firewall system and are called predefined URL categories, which are used to control access to
common websites. Predefined URL categories cannot be created, deleted, or renamed.
User-defined URL categories are URL categories manually configured by the administrator. They are used to cover new websites
and meet special filtering requirements.
⚫ You can configure a user-defined URL category in either of the following ways:
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Blacklist and Whitelist URL Categories Low-Reputation or Malicious URL External Dynamic Malicious URL
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• After the administrator uses the filtering level, the actions of all URL categories
are automatically generated based on the filtering level.
4. If the category is not found, the firewall continues to query the Load
category on the remote query server, processes the URL based on the
query result, and saves the queried URL and its category information to Predefined URL
category database
the predefined URL category cache for quick query next time.
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Blacklist and Whitelist URL Categories Low-Reputation or Malicious URL External Dynamic Malicious URL
⚫ A malicious URL is a URL that contains malicious information. The sources of malicious URLs are as follows:
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• A sandbox is a virtual system program that allows you to run browsers or other
programs in a sandbox environment. Therefore, changes generated during the
running can be deleted later. It creates a sandbox-like independent operating
environment where programs running inside do not have a permanent impact on
the hard drive. It is an independent virtual environment that can be used to test
untrusted applications or online behaviors.
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• Immediate update: This update mode applies when a new external malicious URL
signature database is detected on the network but the scheduled update time of
the firewall is not reached or the scheduled update function is not enabled on
the firewall. The download address for immediate update is the same as that for
scheduled update, and the update processes in both modes are the same. The
difference between two update modes is the update time. The immediate update
can be implemented at any time.
URL Matching Rules (1/3)
⚫ When filtering URLs based on the whitelist, blacklist, user-defined categories, and predefined categories, the firewall
must comply with URL matching rules. There are four URL matching modes:
The system checks whether a URL matches the specified string. If not, the
system removes the last directory from the URL and matches the URL with
To control the access to all websites at
the specified string. If the URL is still not matched, the system removes the
Exact matching www.example.com, configure the URL
last directory from the URL and matches the URL with the specified string.
filtering rule www.example.com.
The process repeats until the URL contains only the domain name, for
example, www.example.com.
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• You can configure URL and host rules in the whitelist, blacklist, user-defined
categories, and predefined categories. A URL rule matches all parts of a URL,
whereas a host rule matches only a domain name (or IP address). The two types
of rules apply to the following scenarios:
▫ If the URLs to be permitted or blocked are domain names, both URL rules
and host rules apply in most cases, and the two types of rules have the
same filtering effect. For example, permit or block the access to domain
name www.example.com.
⚫ For example, the URL www.example.com/news can match the following three modes at the same time. Based on
the priority, the URL category corresponding to the exact matching condition www.example.com/news is used.
Exact matching: www.example.com/news
Prefix matching: www.example.com/*
Keyword matching: *example*
⚫ In the same matching mode, a longer matching rule has a higher priority. For example, URL
www.example.com/news/index.html first matches www.example.com/news/* in the following prefix matching rules:
www.example.com/news/*
www.example.com/*
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URL Matching Rules (3/3)
⚫ If the matching rules in the same mode have the same length, the configured action mode is used to determine the
rule that a URL matches.
If the action mode is Strict, the URL category with the strictest action is used.
If the action mode is Loose, the URL category with the loosest action is used.
⚫ As described in the following table, the two URL rules are in keyword matching mode and have the same length.
For URL www.example.com, if two categories can be matched at the same time but the control actions are
different:
If the action mode is Strict, the URL will match the category with a stricter action. In this example, the URL matches category B
whose action is Block.
If the action mode is Loose, the URL will match the category with a looser action. In this example, the URL matches category A
whose action is Allow.
Category Action
www.example.com/A Allow
www.example.com/B Block
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Contents
▫ File Blocking
▫ Data Filtering
▫ Mail Filtering
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Application Scenarios of DNS Filtering
⚫ DNS filtering filters domain names in DNS request packets to allow or prohibit users' access to certain websites,
regulating online behaviors.
⚫ The firewall is deployed at the network border as the enterprise's gateway. When enterprise users initiate web
requests, the firewall can allow, alert, or block users' requests by filtering domain names in the request packets.
⚫ As shown in the following figure, DNS filtering is applied to:
Users' access requests to websites with legitimate domain names are permitted.
Users' access requests to websites with illegitimate domain names are blocked.
DNS server
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• DNS filtering can allow or block requests based on the different schedules, user,
or user group by referencing these configuration items to control users' Internet
access permissions in a more refined and accurate manner.
Process of DNS Filtering
⚫ If traffic matches a security policy that has a DNS filtering profile configured, the device extracts the domain name
from the DNS request packet and sends the domain name for DNS filtering. The following figure shows the DNS
filtering process:
Traffic
Yes
No No No
Matched the Matched a Is the remote
Matched a user-
blacklist or predefined query server
defined category?
whitelist? category? available?
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• Predefined categories
▫ Predefined DNS categories are embedded in the system and are the same
as predefined URL categories. You cannot create, delete, or rename
predefined DNS categories, or add user-defined domain name rules to
predefined DNS categories.
• User-defined categories
Perform the control when an HTTP/HTTPS URL Perform the control in the domain name
Access control phase
request is initiated. resolution phase.
Fine-grained. Coarse-grained.
Control granularity The control can be performed at the directory and The control can be performed only at the
file levels. domain name level.
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Contents
▫ DNS Filtering
◼ File Blocking
▫ Data Filtering
▫ Mail Filtering
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Overview of File Blocking
⚫ File blocking is a security mechanism used to filter files based on the file type. The firewall can block or
generate alarms for specific types of files by identifying the file types.
⚫ File blocking blocks the transmission of certain types of files, which reduces risks of executing malicious
codes and viruses on the internal network and prevents employees from transmitting enterprises'
confidential files to the Internet.
DMZ
Internal Virus-infected files
server Confidential documents
Trust Untrust
Firewall
Intranet
Enterprise
employees Virus-infected files and
confidential documents
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• The firewall identifies the types of files transferred through itself, and blocks or
generates alarms for files of the specified type.
• If the file (traffic) that passes through the firewall matches a security policy rule,
the action in the rule is permit, and the rule references the file blocking profile,
file blocking detection is required.
1 2 3
File Control item Action
identification analysis execution
Firewall
Intranet
Enterprise
employees Confidential files, Untrust
Trust
virus-infected files, etc.
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• Control items refer to the user-defined file type, file name extension, and file
transfer direction. File analysis is performed based on these settings.
Principles of File Blocking Technologies (1/2)
⚫ The firewall can identify received files as follows:
File application protocol: Files are transmitted over an application protocol, such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, or IMAP.
File transfer direction: The value can be upload or download.
File type: The firewall can identify the actual file type. For example, the file name of file.doc can be changed to file.exe, but the
file type is still .doc.
File name extension: It indicates the suffix of the file name (including the compressed file). For example, the file name extensions
of file.doc and file.exe are .doc and .exe, respectively.
⚫ If the firewall file identification result is abnormal, you need to configure the next action. Generally, the default
value is used. The abnormal file type identification results are as follows:
Mismatched file name extension: The file type is inconsistent with the file name extension.
Unidentified file type: The file type cannot be identified and the file name extension is not available.
File damage: The file type cannot be identified because the file is damaged.
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Principles of File Blocking Technologies (2/2)
⚫ The firewall determines whether to match files with filtering rules as well as matching conditions based on file identification results
and the action for file identification exceptions.
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• The firewall sets an action for file identification exceptions and determines the
next step based on the action.
• To match file blocking rules, the firewall matches file attributes (application,
direction, file type, and file name extension) with the rules in the file blocking
profile defined by the administrator.
▫ If the attributes of a file meet all conditions in a file blocking rule, the file
matches the rule successfully. Otherwise, the next rule is matched. If the file
does not match any rule, the firewall allows the file transfer.
▫ If the file matches a rule, the firewall implements the action defined in the
rule. If the action is Block, the firewall blocks the file transfer. If the action
is Alert, the firewall allows the file transfer and records a log.
• Note: If the file type cannot be identified, the system checks whether the file
name extension exists. If the file name extension exists, the system matches the
file against file blocking rules. If the file name extension does not exist, the
system performs the action defined for files without file name extensions.
Contents
▫ DNS Filtering
▫ File Blocking
◼ Data Filtering
▫ Mail Filtering
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Introduction to Data Filtering
⚫ Data filtering is a security mechanism that filters the content of a file or an application. The firewall implements in-
depth identification of traffic content and performs the block or alert action on traffic containing specified
keywords.
⚫ Content filtering prevents disclosure of confidential information and transmission of violation information.
DMZ
Internal Confidential content
server Unpermitted content
Trust Untrust
Firewall
Intranet
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Yes Yes
Identify the
If a data filtering If any keyword Execute
content attributes
rule matched? detected? the action
of traffic
No No
The traffic
matches a
security policy Permit Permit
and the action is
permit
Traffic
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▫ The device detects the traffic content and identifies the traffic content
attribute.
▪ For a file, the identified content includes the protocol used for
transmitting the file, file type, and transmission direction.
▫ The device compares the traffic features with the conditions in the data
filtering rule. If all conditions are matched, the traffic matches the data
filtering rule. Otherwise, the next rule is compared. If no data filtering rule
is matched, the device permits the traffic.
▫ If the traffic matches a data filtering rule, the device checks whether any
keyword defined in the data filtering rule exists in the traffic content. If a
keyword is identified, the device performs the response action. If no
keyword is identified, the device permits the traffic.
Traffic Identification for Data Filtering
⚫ The data filtering technology implements in-depth identification of traffic content and the device
performs the block or alert action on traffic containing specified keywords. Data filtering falls into two
types: file data filtering and application data filtering.
File data filtering filters the uploaded and downloaded files by keyword. You can specify the protocols for file
transfer or the types of files to be filtered.
Application data filtering filters application content by keyword. The content filtered varies according to different
applications.
For file data, the application type, file type, and file transfer direction of the file are
identified.
For application data, the application type and application content transmission
direction are identified.
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Filtering Content Supported by Common Protocols
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Keyword Detection for Data Filtering
⚫ A keyword refers to the content to be identified by the device in data filtering. The device performs the
specified action for the files or applications containing a specified keyword. Generally, the keyword is
confidential or illegitimate information.
⚫ The keyword includes pre-defined keywords and user-defined keywords.
Pre-defined keywords include bank card numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, ID card numbers,
and confidentiality (including confidential, secret, and top secret information).
User-defined keywords can be texts or regular expressions.
Text mode: indicates the keyword to be identified in text mode. For example, if you
want to identify the keyword "confidential document", you only need to customize
the keyword "confidential file" in text mode.
User-defined
keyword
Regular expression mode: indicates that the keywords to be identified are defined in
regular expressions. For example, the period (.) in the regular expression abc.de can
match any single character.
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▫ "*" indicates that the preceding character or expression is matched for zero
or multiple times.
▫ "\w" indicates that digits, letters, and underscores (_) are matched.
Actions for Data Filtering
⚫ When the device identifies keywords during data filtering detection, it performs a response action.
Action Description
Alert The device generates logs but does not block the content.
The device blocks the content and generates logs. For users, the web pages cannot be
Block
displayed, files cannot be uploaded or downloaded, and mails cannot be sent or received.
Each keyword has a weight. The device adds the weights of identified keywords by matching
Weight-based count. If the sum of weights is less than the block threshold and greater than or equal to the
operations alert threshold, the device generates an alarm. If the sum of weights is greater than or equal
to the block threshold, the device blocks the traffic.
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▫ Two keywords are defined on the device. The weight of keyword a is 1, and
that of keyword b is 2. The alert threshold for data filtering is 1, and the
block threshold is 5. Assuming that keyword a appears once on the web
page browsed by a user, the sum of weights is 1, which is equal to the alert
threshold. The device generates a log, but the user can continue browsing
the web page. If keyword a appears three times and keyword b appears
twice on the web page browsed by a user, the sum of weights is 7 (3 x 1 +
2 x 2 = 7), which is greater than block threshold 5. The device blocks the
web page and generates a log, and the web page cannot be displayed for
the user.
Contents
▫ DNS Filtering
▫ File Blocking
▫ Data Filtering
◼ Mail Filtering
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Process of Mail Transfer
⚫ The following figure shows the mechanism for sending and receiving mails.
The user encapsulates the mail content into an SMTP message and sends it to the sender's SMTP server.
The sender's SMTP server encapsulates the mail into an SMTP message and sends it to the recipient's SMTP server for storage.
After receiving the request from the user, the POP3/IMAP server obtains the mail stored on the SMTP server.
The POP3/IMAP server encapsulates the mail into a POP3/IMAP message and sends it to the receiver.
4 Receive a mail:
Sender Sender's SMTP server
send a POP3/
IMAP message
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• The network administrator needs to deploy the SMTP and POP3 (or IMAP)
services on the mail server, and mail client software (such as Microsoft Outlook
or Foxmail) is installed on an end user's PC.
▫ SMTP defines how PCs send mails to an SMTP server and how mails are
transferred between SMTP servers.
▫ Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) and Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP)
specify how PCs manage and download mails on the mail server through
client software.
▫ The differences between IMAP and POP3 are as follows: When POP3 is
used, after the client software downloads unread mails to the PC, the mail
server deletes the mails. If IMAP is used, users can directly manage mails on
the server without downloading all mails to the local PC.
Overview of Mail Filtering
⚫ Mail filtering manages and controls the mail receiving and sending behavior, including preventing flooding of spam
and anonymous mails and controlling unauthorized mail receiving and sending.
⚫ Mail filtering checks IP addresses and filters mail content to enhance mail system security for LAN users.
The IP address check prevents flood of spam on the intranet.
Mail content filtering filters out anonymous mails and checks mail content to control permission of intranet users for sending or
receiving mails.
DMZ
Mail server
R&D Trust
Anonymous Spam
Mails can only be Mail server
mail
received.
Mails cannot be sent.
Sales Firewall
Mails can be sent but Untrust
the attachment size is
limited.
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• As shown in the figure, the firewall functions as the security gateway of an office
network and the mail server is deployed on the intranet. Intranet users send and
receive mails through the intranet mail server.
• After mail filtering is configured on the firewall, the following mail security
protection can be implemented:
▫ Enable the anti-spam function to prevent the intranet SMTP server from
receiving a large amount of spam.
▫ Enable the mailbox address check function. In this way, only the specified
mail address can be used to send or receive mails. With the mail sending
and receiving permissions being controlled, important information
disclosure by intranet users can be prevented.
▫ Enable the mail attachment control function to control the size and number
of attachments, preventing a large amount of information from being
leaked through attachments.
IP Address-based Filtering (1/2)
⚫ According to the mail working mechanism, no authentication is performed between the PC and the mail server or
between the mail servers. Attackers can send mails through any SMTP server on the Internet.
⚫ To prevent spam flooding, you can check the validity of the source IP address of the sender's SMTP server.
Query the local blacklist and whitelist
Query the Real-time Blackhole List (RBL)
SMTP server
1 Receive
an SMTP
3 Permit legitimate Message
connections and
DMZ block spam Authorized user
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• The RBL is a large online database jointly collected anti-spam organizations and
lists the IP address of the SMTP servers that frequently forward spam.
• Spam refers to a mail that is sent to a user's mailbox without permission. The
spam usually contains advertisements, publicity materials, or even virus
programs. A large amount of spam not only consumes network bandwidth,
occupies mailbox space, but also brings security risks.
• In IP address check, the firewall checks the source IP address of the sender's
SMTP server. The implementation process is as follows:
▫ The firewall receives SMTP messages from other SMTP servers, including
normal mails and spam.
▫ The firewall checks the IP address.
▪ Parses the SMTP message and obtains the source IP address of the
sender's SMTP server from the SMTP message.
▪ Checks the validity of the source IP address. The firewall compares the
IP address with the blacklist and whitelist to determine the validity of
the IP address:
− If the source IP address matches the local whitelist, the mail is
legitimate. Otherwise, the mail is searched against the local
blacklist.
− If the mail matches the local blacklist, the mail is considered as
spam. Otherwise, the mail is searched against the RBL.
− If the mail matches the RBL, the mail is spam. Otherwise, the
mail is legitimate.
▫ Allows legitimate mails and blocks spam.
IP Address-based Filtering (2/2)
⚫ RBL query mechanism:
The firewall obtains the IP address of the sender's SMTP server and sends a query request to the RBL server.
The RBL server maintains a real-time blacklist. All SMTP servers in the blacklist have sent spam.
The firewall determines whether the IP address belongs to the spam server based on the result returned by the RBL server and
takes the corresponding actions.
Sender's
1 Extract the source IP
SMTP server
address of the SMTP server
6 Block mails
2 Send a DNS
parsing request
SMTP server
Firewall 3 Send an RBL
query request
DMZ
5 Forward the
response code
DNS 4 Reply the RBL
server response code server
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process is as follows:
1. The data reaches the firewall. Mail server
Firewall
2. The firewall performs mail content filtering. Trust
◼ Traffic identification: The firewall identifies mail content to be 2 Mail content filtering
filtered based on the matching conditions, such as the source
Mail Traffic
security zone, destination security zone, source IP address, and filtering identification
destination IP address.
◼ Mail filtering: The firewall analyzes which traffic contains mail
content, checks the mail address and attachment size, and identifies
illegitimate mails.
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• Anonymous mail check, mail address check, and mail attachment control filter
out illegitimate mails based on their content. They check the mail addresses of
the sender and receiver, the attachment size, and the number of attachments.
• The mail content filtering detection is classified into the sending direction and
receiving direction.
▫ DNS Filtering
▫ File Blocking
▫ Data Filtering
▫ Mail Filtering
◼ Application Behavior Control
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Application Scenarios of Application Behavior Control
⚫ Enterprises need to manage HTTP and FTP behaviors of intranet users, and grant different permissions for different users to access
network resources through HTTP and FTP and also for one user to access network resources at different schedules.
⚫ The application behavior control function of the firewall can accurately control users' HTTP, FTP, and IM behaviors to meet the
preceding requirements.
Trust Untrust
User A Web server
Switch Firewall
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• Multiple application behavior control profiles are created on the firewall. Each
profile is used to grant different HTTP, FTP and IM permissions to intranet users.
Then objects such as the profiles, users, and schedules (working hours and non-
working hours) are referenced in security policies to deliver differentiated and
fine-grained control on HTTP, FTP and IM behaviors of intranet users.
Process of Application Behavior Control
⚫ Traditional devices control HTTP and FTP behaviors by protocol or port. However, the firewall can implement more
refined control over HTTP and FTP behaviors.
⚫ As shown in the figure, the firewall analyzes the behavior type, performs the action corresponding to the
application behavior control item, and even performs control based on different users and schedules.
Intranet
Firewall
Enterprise
employees Untrust
Trust
1 2 3
Behavior type Control item Action
analysis analysis execution
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▫ Analyze the behavior type to determine the behavior type (such as HTTP
and FTP).
▫ Analyze control items based on the behavior type, such as file upload and
download.
Web browsing You can use a web browser to browse web pages. Permit/Deny
Size of the posted content When HTTP POST is permitted, you can configure an alert
in HTTP POST operations threshold and a block threshold to control the POST operation
(Alert/Block threshold) content size. Alert/Block
Upload/Download file size When file upload is allowed, you can configure an alert
(Alert/Block threshold) threshold and a block threshold to control the file size.
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• Alert threshold: When the size of the file to be uploaded or downloaded (or the
size of the POST operation content reaches the alert threshold), the system
generates a log and displays it to the administrator.
• Block threshold: When the size of the uploaded or downloaded file or the size of
the POST operation content reaches the block threshold, the system blocks the
uploaded or downloaded file or POST operation and generates a log to notify the
device administrator.
• When you create security policies, you can combine the application behavior
control profile and objects such as the user and schedule to implement
differentiated management of users in different schedules.
FTP-based Behavior Control Technologies
File deletion You can delete a file from the FTP server.
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• The alarm threshold and block threshold can be separately or both configured. If
both thresholds are configured, ensure that the alarm threshold is lower than the
block threshold.
Contents
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Example for Configuring Content Security - Requirement
Description
⚫ An enterprise has deployed a firewall as a Internet users
security gateway at the intranet egress. In
addition to normal network running, the
enterprise requires: Web server
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Example for Configuring Content Security - Configuration
Roadmap
⚫ Configuration roadmap:
Configure IP addresses and routes for devices to ensure
Start
interconnection.
Configure file blocking to prevent employees from
Configure basic network
uploading suspicious files. File blocking
Configure data filtering to prevent employees from
Configure content security
disclosing confidential information. Data filtering
filtering
Configure URL filtering to prevent employees from accessing
Configure a security policy URL filtering
unpermitted websites.
and invoke a content
Configure URL remote query to expand the local predefined security profile
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Configuring File Blocking
⚫ Choose Object > Security Profile > File Blocking and set the parameters as follows:
Create the file blocking profile profile_file_1.
Create file blocking rule rule1 and configure a policy to block the upload of executable files.
1
2
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Configuring Data Filtering
⚫ Choose Object > Security Profile > Data Filtering and set the parameters as follows:
Create data filtering profile profile_data_1 and data filtering rule rule.
Create keyword group key1 and keyword Enterprise Secret to match the text Secret.
2
5
3
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Configuring URL Filtering (1/2)
⚫ Choose Object > Security Profiles > URL Filtering, create a URL filtering profile, and set the filtering
level to User-defined.
1
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Configuring URL Filtering (2/2)
⚫ Set the action (Allow, Alert, or Block) for the URL category as required, create the URL category
untrust, match URL www.example.com, and set the action to Block.
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Configuring URL Remote Query (1/2)
⚫ To ensure that the local firewall can communicate with the remote server, you need to configure security policies to
allow the traffic of the services to pass through the firewall:
Choose Object > Service > Service to create a user-defined service.
Choose Policy > Security Policy > Add Security Policy and reference the user-defined service.
1 4
5
2
3
6
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• To use the URL remote query service, ensure that the following operations have
been performed:
▫ The license has been activated and is within the valid service period.
▫ A DNS server address is configured, and the DNS server can correctly
resolve the domain name sec.huawei.com.
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Referencing a Content Security Profile
⚫ Choose Policy > Security Policy > Security Policy > Add Security Policy.
Set the security policy name to to_Internet, configure the source and destination security zones, and reference a content security
profile.
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Quiz
1. (True or false) When the HTTP file download action is set to Deny, you can set the block
threshold. ( )
A. True
B. False
B. Data filtering
C. Mail filtering
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1. B
2. ABCD
Summary
⚫ This course describes the functions related to content security filtering. By deploying the
content security filtering function on the firewall, you can implement refined management
and control on enterprise users. For example, access to illegitimate websites is not allowed
to prevent adverse impacts on enterprises, access to entertainment websites during working
hours is not allowed to improve work efficiency, and core confidential information leakage
is prevented.
⚫ Upon completion of this course, you have understood the implementation of content
security filtering technologies and been able to independently configure URL filtering, file
blocking, and data filtering on Huawei firewalls.
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Recommendations
⚫ Huawei official websites:
Enterprise service: https://e.huawei.com/en/
Technical support: https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/en/index.html
Online learning: http://learning.huawei.com/en/
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Acronyms and Abbreviations
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每个组织,构建万物互联的智能世界。
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intelligent world.