One customer reported that BBC online video can not be blocked by WFilter, even "Block Online HTTP Video and Downloading of Video Files" is checked in certain blocking levels. So we did some research and found, other than HTTP protocol, the BBC websites also use the RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol) to play online video. Because blocking of RTMP is not supported by default in WFilter(will be added soon), this tutorial will guide you to block BBC online video by the "Customize Protocols " feature of WFilter.
First, Add a new protocol named "RTMP".  1. Protocol Settings: Protocol Name: RTMP Protocol Desc: Real Time Messaging Protocol Type: Streaming 2. Pattern1 Name: RTMP_HTTP Desc: RTMP_HTTP Type: HTTP SEND Offset: 0 Format: User-Agent Content: Shockwave\sFlash 3. Pattern2 Name: RTMP Desc: RTMP Type: TCP_SEND Offset: 0 Begin Byte: 03 Format: 0 Content: \x03[\x00-\xff]{4}\x80\x00 Second, Enable blocking of RTMP in certain blocking levels. Now, BBC videos will be successfully blocked. Related Topic: How to block bbc iplayer?
Internet can be a benefit to business when used properly, but internet
is often abused by employees and poses significant liability and
security risks. Used
improperly, the Internet can subject every organization to harassment claims,
countless hours of lost productivity and innumerable security leaks and
vulnerabilities. Several important risks caused by improper internet usage: 1. Virus Infection 2. Lost Productivity 3. Legal liability 4. Bandwidth consumer So it is necessary for you to restrict employees internet access on your network. To achieve this goal, first you need an internet access policy, which should be able to: 1. Clarify what constitutes acceptable use of Internet services. 2. Ensure employees understand who to contact with questions regarding acceptable use. 3. Ensure employees understand the penalties that arise from Internet misuse. 4. Help lessen an organization's spyware and virus infestation rates. 5. Provide human resources with signed documentation from each employee stating a pledge not to improperly use Internet services. 6. Help mitigate productivity losses. 7. Decrease dependence upon technology solutions used to enforce employee behavior. 8. Reduce the organization's liability resulting from harassment claims, copyright violations originating onsite and other illegal acts. You also need an internet filtering product to assure your internet policy. Let's take "WFilter Enterprise" as an example, it enables you to monitor and filter internet access for all computers from a mirroring port of your switch. You only need to install WFilter in one computer to monitor the whole network. Key Features:
- Keep a detailed record of each web surfing and web posting.
- Record all incoming and outgoing email content and attachment.
- Monitor and archive instance messengers chat contents and activities.
- Monitor and archive files transferred by web, ftp and IM tools.
- Implement a policy to filter internet access during working hours.
- Websites, messengers and p2p file downloading can be blocked to save bandwidth and raise productivity.
- You only need to install WFilter in ONE computer to manage your whole network.
http://www.imfirewall.us
Though official Google Talk protocol is XMPP, it is more
complicated and flexible than XMPP. Google Talk (GTalk) provides several ways for you to access your gtalk account, including:
- 1). Official "Google Talk" client.
- 2). Gmail chat in google mail account.
- 3). Google Talk Gadget -- a web version of Gtalk.
This makes it complicated for you to block usage of google talk on company network. This tutorial will guide you to block google talk, gmail chat and google talk gadget using WFilter.
WFilter identifies Google talk connections by signature matching. Blocking google talk is simple in WFilter.
The below examples demonstrates blocking of google talk and gmail chat.
1. Blocking of jabber, gmail chat and gadget
Set a blocking policy in WFilter to block jabber and google talk: 
2. Blocked Google talk:
 
3. Blocked gadget
 4. Blocked gmail chat
For security purpose, you might want to block employees file uploading to internet on your network. However, since there are so many tools can be used for uploading, it is extremely difficult to block them all. Files can be uploaded in various ways: 1. Upload to certain websites, eg: webmail, file sharing websites... 2. Using msn/yahoo/icq messengers to send files. 3. Email attachments. 4. FTP 5. Other third party tools. WFilter provide a simply solution to block file uploading on company networks. Using WFilter, you can block file uploading and file transfers of all computers from ONE computer. This tutorial will guide you to block file uploading using WFilter. First, block file uploading to websites. Please notice "block uploading files via web pages" only works on HTTP websites. To control HTTPs websites, you can use "HTTPS black/white list" in "Others" of WFilter. Second, block email attachments.
 Third, block FTP and file transfer via messengers.
 Last, block unknown protocols.Blocking unknown protocols blocks file uploading using other unknown third party programs.  More information, please check "WFilter Enterprise".
Other related links: How to block internet downloading?How to monitor internet usage on company network?Internet monitoring software for businessHow to filter web surfing?How to block websites and restrict internet access?How to Block Bittorrent and bitcomet? How to block msn file transfer?How to block certain websites to save your productivity? How to block AIM using WFilter?
Sometimes you may want to block facebook games during working hours. This tutorial will guide you to block facebook games using "WFilter Enterprise". First, add a website black list. Second, choose this website black list in certain blocking policy.
Third, apply this blocking policy to certain computers.
Now, facebook game is blocked.
BBC iPlayer (formerly known as Integrated Media Player (iMP), Interactive Media Player, and MyBBCPlayer) is an internet television service, P2P, cable television, and several mobile devices developed by the BBC to extend its existing RealPlayer-based "Radio Player" and other streamed video clip content. As online iPlayer may consume much internet bandwidth, this tutorial will guide you to block BBC iPlayer using WFilter. We suppose WFilter is already properly installed and is capable of monitoring/blocking other computers, if not, please read How to monitor internet usage on company network first. WFilter's "website black list" is based on website domains, so we can not use "website black list" to block iPlayer, since iPlayer is a subfolder of www.bbc.co.uk without a individual domain. However, we still can use "URL Keywords Filtering" feature to block url with certain keywords. The below example demonstrates blocking of url with keyword "iplayer". 1. Create a blocking policy, and enable "URL Keywords Filtering". 2. Choose "Streaming Media" category and click the edit icon to edit its keywords list. Please notice: WFilter already has some default keywords(the default
keywords are hidden). For example, "video" is already included in the
"Streaming Media" category. If you only want to block "iplayer", you can add a new category in "Category Settings"->"Customize Categories" of WFilter. In this example, we need to add "iplayer" to the keywords list:  3. Apply this blocking policy to certain computers.  4. By now, urls with keywords "iplayer" will be blocked. More information, please check "WFilter Enterprise".
Other related links: How to block internet downloading?How to monitor internet usage on company network?Internet monitoring software for businessHow to filter web surfing?How to block websites and restrict internet access?How to Block Bittorrent and bitcomet? How to block msn file transfer?How to block certain websites to save your productivity? How to block AIM using WFilter?
WFilter can be used to block sending/receiving emails, block sending attachments and filter email accounts. And you only need to install WFilter in one computer to monitor all computers in your network. This tutorial will guide you to block outgoing emails with attachments.
This feature can block sending of emails with attachments via SMTP protocol.
1.1 Add a new blocking level, as in the below figure:
 1.2 Set a proper "Level Name" and "Level Desc", check "Block sending emails with attachment(s)", as in Figure 2:  1.3 Apply this new blocking level to certain users in "User-computer Table", as in the below figure:  1.4 Emails with attachment(s) will be blocked, as in Figure 4:  
Some switches does not allow outgoing traffic on a mirroring port. In this case, WFilter needs a separate blocking adapter to send blocking packets. And if you're monitoring and filtering more than 100 computers, we recommend you to use a different blocking adapter as the monitoring adapter. When the two network cards are installed, we will want the Windows system to use the blocking adapter to access your network. However, sometime the Windows system might pick up the monitoring adapter and fails to connect to your network. This problem can be resolved by the "Automatic Metric" setting in Windows. A metric is a value that is assigned to an IP route for a particular
network interface that identifies the cost that is associated with
using that route. The Automatic Metric feature is configured independently for each network interface in the network. This feature is useful in situations where you have more than one
network interface of the same speed, for example, when each network
interface has been assigned a default gateway. In this situation, you
may want to manually configure the metric on one network interface, and
enable the Automatic Metric feature to configure the metric of the
other network interface. This setup can enable you to control the
network interface that is used first in the routing of IP traffic. In our case, the "Automatic Metric" of the blocking adapter shall be smaller than the monitoring adapter. So by setting "Automatic Metric" of the blocking adapter to "1", and the monitoring adapter to "2", Windows system will use the blocking adapter to access your network.   
Sometimes, on an indeterminate problem of using WFilter, we might need a packet dump file for diagnosis. WFilter has a packet dump tool named "dumpPacket.exe", which will dump packets on the monitoring adapter.
This tutorial will guide you to generate a packet dump file using "dumpPacket.exe".
First, lauch "dumpPacket.exe" from "Start"->"IMFirewall WFilter"->"Tools". If you didn't install WFilter shortcuts, you can find this tool in WFilter directory.
 It will ask you to enter a testing ip address. For example, if
you need to check a monitoring problem for ip "192.168.1.20", you can
input "192.168.1.20" here. If you just want to capture some packet
samples, you may just press "enter" here! Press "enter" means dumping
packets for all computers.
 Close the dumping window. If you're doing a certain test, you need to wait until the test is done. For example, sending an email message. If you're dumping packets for all computers, you only need to wait for 3-5 seconds because the dump file can be very large. If the dumping file is too large, you can do the test again in a shorter time.  The dump.cap file can be found in "temp" directory of WFilter. The dump.cap file is pcap format, which can be opened by wireshark and other pcap applications. 
To make WFilter work, you need to setup port mirroring in your switch. However, sometimes you might still cannot monitor other computers even port mirroring is configured. It has several possibilities: 1. Misconfigured port mirroring. (wrong port, incorrect settings...) 2. Cable problem. 3. Network card problem. 4. Incorrect WFilter settings. (wrong ip segment or monitoring adapter...) To locate the problem, first we need to confirm whether packets are mirrored to WFilter computer. It can be checked in a simple way following below steps:   Upon successful mirroring, the "Received" packets number shall be much larger than the "Sent" packets. If not, you need to check certain mirroring settings or cable connections.
LimeWire is a free peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) client for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems supported by the Java software platform. It uses the Gnutella network and also the BitTorrent protocol. Using Limewire, users can easily download copies of copyrighted materials and illegal or objectionable content. In LimeWire versions prior to 5.0, users could accidentally configure the software to allow access to any file on their computer, including documents with personal information. Though recent versions of LimeWire do not allow unintentional sharing of documents or applications, it still opens a share directory to share downloaded files by default. Therefore, to save your bandwidth and keep your network safe, you might want to block limewire program on your network. However, though the default TCP port of Gnutella2 is 6346. You can not block limewire only by blocking this port in your router or firewall, because Limewire allow users to change its default port. This tutorial will guide you to block limewire downloading using WFilter. WFilter blocks Limewire traffic based on signature matching despite which port it is using. Limewire can be blocked only by a single click.
 Blocked limewire:  Blocking logs of limewire in WFilter:  WFilter homepage: http://www.imfirewall.us/WFilter.htm
Traffic Shaping and Prioritization is becoming more and more common in the corporate market. Most companies with remote offices are now connected via a WAN (Wide Area Network). Applications tend to become centrally hosted at the head office and remote offices are expected to pull data from central databases and server farms. As applications become more hungry in terms of bandwidth and prices of dedicated circuits being relatively high in most areas of the world, instead of increasing the size of their WAN circuits, companies feel the need to properly manage their circuits to make sure business-oriented traffic gets priority over best-effort traffic. Traffic shaping is thus a good means for companies to avoid purchasing additional bandwidth while properly managing these resources. With a linux gateway, you have a very rich set of tools for managing and manipulating the transmission of packets. More details can be found at: http://linux-ip.net/articles/Traffic-Control-HOWTO/index.html, However, sometimes it might be difficult for you to deploy a linux gateway server. This tutorial will guide to implement a passby bandwidth management solution, which enables you to manage internet bandwidth through a mirroring port on your switch. Port mirroring allows you to setup a port in the switch to receive packets of other ports. Setting up a mirror port does no change to your network topology, and it will not affect your network speed. Let's take WFilter as an example: First, setup a mirroring port.When the port mirroring is properly setup, WFilter will be able to monitor all computers internet activities.  Bandwidth Management SettingsUsing WFilter's bandwidth management feature, you can set a maximum accumulating bandwidth of each computer for a period time. In this example, each user can have 200M internet bandwidth every day. Only messengers and emails are allowed when the bandwidth limit is reached. 
You also can setup a policy to block certain users when available
internet bandwidth of the entire network is not enough. For example,
When entire network traffic exceeds 80% of available internet
bandwidth, p2p traffic will be blocked.
 Bandwidth Alert SettingsAnd the bandwidth alert feature will send you an alert email when the accumulating bandwidth of a computer is too large.  More information, please check "WFilter Enterprise". Other related links: How to block websites at work during working hours?How to block video streaming on company network?How to block internet downloading?How to monitor internet bandwidth?How to monitor internet usage on company network?How to block instant messaging on company network?How to filter websites and restrict website access?
You may assign static ip addresses to computers manually or in your DHCP server. However, it is difficult to prevent users from changing their ip addresses or mac addresses. Though it is more reasonable to setup ip-mac binding in routers or switches, software solution is also a good option, as it is easier to setup and manage. This tutorial will guide you to bind ip addresses to mac addresses in WFilter, an internet filtering and monitoring software product. First, you need to setup a mirror port in your switch to do monitoring. For how to deploy internet monitoring and filtering, check this guide: How to monitor internet usage?Second, in "Control Settings"->"IP Management" of WFilter, you can setup ip-mac binding just by a few clicks.  i When ip-mac binding is setup, internet access will be blocked when the user tries to change ip address or mac address.
WFilter supports online activation and Email activation.
If
you choose to activate your product over the Internet, upon your
submisson the activation wizard will detect your Internet connection
and connect to a secure server to transfer your register key to us. The
registration is passed back to you, automatically activating WFilter,
if the register key is valid.
If you choose to activate your
product by email activation, you should input the register key in text
box and click the "confirm". You will get an activation code. Please
send them to the support email box. The validation code will be sent
back to you within 24 hours. Please copy them in the valiation code
textbox to activate your product. 1. Steps of Online ActivationOnline activation requires an available internet connection to connect to WFilter activation server. 1). In "Help"->"About" of WFilter, click "Product Activation".  2). Input your key number and use "online activation" to do online activation.  3). Successful activation.   2. Steps of Email ActivationOnline activation requires an available internet connection. If you can not connect to WFilter activation server, you also can use "Email Activation". 1). Input your key number and use "email activation" to do online activation.  2). In "Email Activation", copy the activation code and send to support email address.   3) It might take several hours to receive the reply email since the response email is sent manually.  4). In "Help"->"About" of WFilter, you need to enter the received validation code into WFilter.   3. De-activationSometimes, you might want to move the key to another computer. You need to de-activate this key first. Click "deactivate" in "Help"->"About" to de-activate the key.
Unmanaged websites surfing is killing your productivity. And your computer and network is open to attack when visiting harmful sites. So it is important to block unwanted websites in your network. Blocking of websites can be done in many ways. These include using free software and windows settings. There are even many add-ons for browsers like Firefox which let you check and restrict websites. This tutorial will guide you to filter and block websites access in 4 ways. 1. host.cfg In "Local Disk (C:) > WINDOWS > system32> drivers > etc", you will find a file named "host.cfg". The Hosts file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. This file is loaded into memory (cache) at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts file before it queries any DNS servers, which enables it to override addresses in the DNS. This prevents access to the listed sites by redirecting any connection attempts back to the local (your) machine. You may use "notepad.exe" to edit this Hosts file. Example - the following entry 127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net blocks all files supplied by that DoubleClick Server to the web page you are viewing. 2. Opendns OpenDNS offers DNS resolution for consumers and businesses as an alternative to using their Internet service provider's DNS servers. By collecting a list of malicious sites, OpenDNS blocks access to these sites when a user tries to access them through their service. OpenDNS enables you to block websites by 50+ categories. OpenDNS also provides whitelist and blacklist features to enable you to create exception cases ("always allow" and "always block") to complement category-based filtering. To use OpenDNS service, you need to change your DNS server settings manually. More information, please visit http://www.opendns.com3. Router, Firewall or UTM If you have a powerful router or UTM device, you also can setup web filtering on it. For more information about UTM solution, please visit http://www.astaro.com4. Internet filtering products You also can use internet filtering products to do web filtering. An internet filtering product can be deployed in your network, and it enables you to monitor, filter and block internet activities of all computers from a mirroring port. More than web filtering, internet filtering product can also block file downloading, block p2p traffic and block messenger. For internet filtering software, you can try "WFilter Enterprise", http://www.imfirewall.us
Instant Messaging can be a benefit to business when used properly,
but IM is often abused by employees and poses significant liability and
security risks.
The free consumer IM client
programs in widest use, such as AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN Messenger, pose many
security concerns. More than text-based chat, IM programs also include peer to peer file
transfer capabilities, which can pose security risks in two ways.
Internal users can send documents that may be confidential out of your
network, circumventing your network's perimeter defenses against file
sharing programs or e-mail attachments. On the other hand, external
users can send files that might contain viruses or malicious code to
users on the internal network. In addition, a liability risk arises if
employees use the file transfer feature to share copyrighted music,
movie or software files in violation of the law. To make your business efficient, it is necessary for you to monitor, filter and block instant messaging in your network. You may want to apply an internet messenger usage policy like this: 1. Only authrozied users can use certain IM tools. 2. File transfer via messengers shall be blocked. 3. Only work-related IM accounts can be used. As most firewall programs do not support that kind of feature, you need an internet monitoring and filtering program like "WFilter Enterprise". "WFilter Enteprise" enables you to monitor, manage and block internet access of all computers on a mirroring port. For internet messaging blocking, WFilter supports: 1. Blocking certain messenger protocols. 2. Blocking file transfer via messengers. 3. Blocking certain messenger account using black/white list. Figures:  Block file transfer in messengers:  MSN black/white list:  More information, please check "WFilter Enterprise". Other related links: How to block websites at work during working hours?How to block video streaming on company network?How to block internet downloading?How to monitor internet bandwidth?How to monitor internet usage on company network?Internet monitoring software for businessHow to filter web surfing?
Unmanaged websites surfing is killing your productivity. Employees may spend hours to read news, watch online video and play online web games. So, to save productivity, it is necessary for organizations to block certain websites and restrict internet access. You need to implement an internet policy as: 1. Only work-related websites are allowed during work time. 2. Destructive websites like violence, adult, shall be blocked always. 3. Downloading websites shall be blocked to save bandwidth if you are suffering from slow internet speed. However, in today's internet, a website can not be blocked only by blocking its ip address or domain. It is still accessable by: 1. Open proxy servers. 2. Third party tunneling proxy service. 3. Tunnel VPN service. To make your blocking effecient, you also need to block certain proxy/tunneling protocols. WFilter makes it simple to block websites and proxy service. 1. Filter certain websites
You can filter certain websites by "website black/white list" and "website category":   2. Block Proxy Service and VPN protocols.WFilter supports proxy protocol transparently. No addtional setting is required to block open proxy server. You may setup a "HTTPS black/white list" to block unwanted VPN.  More information, please check "WFilter Enterprise". Other related links: How to block video streaming on company network?How to block internet downloading?How to monitor internet bandwidth?How to monitor internet usage on company network?Internet monitoring software for businessHow to filter web surfing?
Online audio/video streaming can consume most of your bandwidth. To save your bandwidth, you might want to block online steaming traffic on your network. Generally speaking, online streaming can run on different protocols: 1. Video websites, like youtube. You can watch video directly on the webpages. 2. Standard Real Time Streaming Protocol(RTSP). 3. P2P based streaming products, like pplive, ppstream. 4. Video downloading websites. Therefore, for complete blocking of video streaming, you need to block all above video traffic. First, block "streaming" category websites: Second, block downloading of video files: Third, blocking RTSP and other online streaming protocols: More information, please check "protocols supported by WFilter". Other related links: How to block internet downloading?How to monitor internet bandwidth?How to monitor internet usage on company network?Internet monitoring software for businessHow to filter web surfing?How to block websites and restrict internet access?How to Block Bittorrent and bitcomet? How to block msn file transfer?How to block certain websites to save your productivity? How to block AIM using WFilter
Unmanaged internet downloading can consume most of your bandwidth, In practice, many, often most, of the files shared on peer-to-peer
networks are copies of copyrighted popular music and movies.
So, it is important for corporations to manage, control and block p2p traffic and block unwanted file downloading. Files can be downloaded via various ways as described below: 1. Downloading from HTTP/FTP websites. 2. Downloading from p2p networks.
3. Downloading from instant messenger buddies. For security purpose, downloading from p2p networks shall be completely forbidden in company networks. And only HTTP/FTP downloading from trusted websites can be allowed. Instant messenger file transfer makes it convenient to share files with our friends. It is fast and secure. However, because IM is so popular, virus writers can use it to spread malicious programs. These viruses are spread, in most cases, when a person clicks a link or opens an infected file that was sent in an instant message that appeared to come from a friend. Therefore, messenger file transfer also put your network in danger. "WFilter Enterprise" makes it simple to manage file transfers between local network and the internet. Using WFilter, you may: 1. Limit file downloading size. 2. Block web downloading by file type. 3. Block web downloading by content type. (Mime type) 4. Block p2p traffic. 5. Block file transfer via messengers. Figures: 
 Other related links: How to monitor internet bandwidth?Internet blockingHow to filter web surfing?How to monitor internet usage on company network?Internet monitoring software for businessInternet monitoring software
Introduction
WFilter supports various ways to filter web surfing activity:
- Block Web Surfing Completely
- Enable Website Black/White List
- Enable URL Keywords Filtering
- Enable Website Category Access Policy
- Websites Exception List
- Enable HTTPS Black/White List
When enabled, all HTTP web surfing will be blocked, except for domains in the "Websites Exception List".
1.1 Add a new blocking level, as in the below figure:
 Figure 1 1.2 Set a proper "Level Name" and "Level Desc", check the "Block Web Surfing". If you want to display a blocking page when blocked, you need to enable "Display a Deny Page When Blocking", as in Figure 2:  Figure 2 1.3 Apply this new blocking level to certain users in "User-computer Table", as in the below figure:
 Figure 3 1.4 Websites will be blocked, as in Figure 4:  Figure 4  Figure 5 Website black/white list can set black list or white list for websites based on domain name.
When black list is enabled, websites in the black list will be blocked. When white list is enabled, only websites in the white list can be visited.
2.1 Add a new blocking level, as in the below figure:
Figure 6 2.2 Set a proper "Level Name" and "Level Desc", check the "Enable Website black/white list", as in Figure 7: Figure 7 2.3 Add certain websites into a black list, as in Figure 8:  Figure 8 2.4 Apply this new blocking level to certain users in "User-computer Table", as in the below figure:
Figure 9 2.5 Websites in the black list will be blocked, as in Figure 10: Figure 10 Figure 11 URL keywords filtering can filter webpages by url address. Using this feature, you can block searching for certain keywords in search engines.
3.1 Add a new blocking level, as in the below figure:
Figure 12
3.2 Set a proper "Level Name" and "Level Desc", check the "Enable URL Keywords Filtering", as in Figure 13: Figure 13 3.3 Check the keywords category to be blocked, as in Figure 14:  Figure 14 3.4 Apply this new blocking level to certain users in "User-computer Table", as in the below figure:
Figure 15 3.5 In this example, searching for "game" will be blocked, as in Figure 16 and Figure 17: Figure 16  Figure 17 Website category access rules can filter websites based on websites categories. Four filtering modes are supported: "Allow", "Deny", "Warn" and "Time Quota".
4.1 Add a new blocking level, as in the below figure:
Figure 18 4.2 Set a proper "Level Name" and "Level Desc", check the "Enable web category rule", as in Figure 19:  Figure 19 4.3 Set certain filtering mode for certain categories, as in Figure 20:  Figure 20 4.4 Apply this new blocking level to certain users in "User-computer Table", as in the below figure:
Figure 21 4.6 In this example, time quota is enabled for "Game" websites, as in Figure 22:
 Figure 22 Websites in the exception list will not be blocked by other rules.
 Figure 23 Above functions can only filter HTTP websites, to block HTTPS websites, you need to enable the "HTTPS Black/White List".
6.1 Add a new blocking level, as in the below figure:
Figure 24 6.2 Set a proper "Level Name" and "Level Desc", check the "Enable HTTPS Black/White List", as in Figure 25: Figure 25 6.3 Add certain websites into a HTTPS Black list, as in Figure 26:  Figure 26 6.4 Apply this new blocking level to certain users in "User-computer Table", as in the below figure:
Figure 27 6.5 As in Figure 28 and 29, certain HTTPS websites will be blocked.  Figure 28  Figure 29 |
Some websites, like facebook, youtube, are rather time consumable.
If you do nothing to filter certain websites, your employees may spend several hours a day on web surfing.
So How to block certain websites to save your productivity?
1. Some router/gateway might have the ability to block certain websites.
2. Firewall appliances, like cisco PIX, will also be a good choice.
3. The third, you can choose internet filtering software to do web filter and blocking.
Block MSN file transfer: impossible mission?
It is convenient to transfer files via messengers like msn/live, yahoo, icq... But it is also necessary for organizations to block unauthorized file transfers to keep their networks safe.
However, messenger software uses several ways to avoid being blocked. They use dynamic ports, encrypted connections, variety connection type to bypass network firewall.
Let me take msn as an example. By our test, there have four type of msn file transfer as described below:
1. For two buddies, if one of them is connected to internet directly, direct connection will be established to transfer files. This is the quickest way. There has three type of direct connections with dynamic ports which is negotiated by two sides.
1.1) Direct TCP connection.
1.2) Direct TCP connection use TLS encryption.
1.3) Direct UDP transmission.
2. If direct connection can not be established, msn servers can act as a relay server to transfer files. The file transfer packets will be among with normal msn messages.
As you can see from above, there is no way to block msn file transfer simply by blocking some ports in the firewall. The firewall should be smart enough to recognize msn file transfer direct connections, and it shall be able to pick up file transfer packets from normal msn messages.
Block MSN File Transfer
Internet Monitor
Block P2P
IMFirewall P2P Classify Engine Introduction
1 Introduction
IMFirewall Software is a professional Internet filtering software provider. We focus on Internet information security and providing customers with a comprehensive approach to manage the Internet usage of enterprise network since founded in 2004. By 2007-10, protocols number supported in our pattern database has reached over 90. And our pattern analysis team is monitoring and analyzing protocols everyday.
2 Supported Pattern Type
Three pattern types are supported:
1. Signature Pattern
You may call it digit signature. As most p2p programs do not has a fix port range nor central servers. The only way to match them is by signature match. IMFirewall pattern matching engine scans every connection for signature of existing protocols..
2. Port Pattern
IMFirewall pattern matching engine can also recognize protocols by port or port range.
3. HTTP Pattern
Because more and more protocols are using HTTP protocol or HTTP tunnel to communicate, our pattern-matching engine also checks http mime-header for signatures. HTTP pattern is powerful to recognize http-based protocols.
3 Pattern Matching Speed
We test the speed of each pattern when new pattern found, the standard speed is 20,000 matches in 1 second.
4 Quick Response for New (Updated) Protocols
As protocols may vary from time to time, it is necessary to keep the pattern database up to date in time.
We have a protocol/programs monitoring system, which will monitor the website and files on official websites of each protocol. Once there is a change, the system will notify our protocol analysis team to test it.
This makes us a quick response for new (updated) protocols. Usually, a updated protocol can be added to our pattern database in 2-3 business days.
Links: Supported protocols list of WFilter
Someone told me WFilter can not block bittorrent downloading. So I did some research yesterday.
I downloaded both bittorrent and bitcomet from their official website. I also downloaded an availble torrent file from bittorrent.com.
Turning "Block P2P" on in WFilter console, then use bitcomet to download, the download never begined. However, when I use bittorrent to download, it will start downloading after trying for a few seconds.
This is really interesting. Since WFilter can detect and block bittorrent traffic using pattern match, this should not happen. So what's the reason? After detailed analysis of the network traffic, I found bittorrent also download data directly from bittorrent.com using http protocol. That means bittorrent not only use p2p downloading, but also can download files directly from the website.
Knowing that, I added "bittorrent.com" in the black list of wfilter's website black&white list, then did the download again. Aha, bittorrent never be able to download any files.
MSN, also called as live messenger is widely used. Windows Live Messenger gives you brilliant ways to connect and share your photos (and other stuff). Contact lists, emoticons, instant access to your friends.
However, sending and receiving files using MSN will face some security risk. External users can send files that might contain viruses or malicious code to users on the internal network. In addition, a liability risk arises if employees use the file transfer feature to share copyrighted music, movie or software files in violation of the law.
How to block msn file transfer?
MSN transfers files using dynamic ports which are negotiated. So it is impossilbe to block msn file transfer ports.
WFilter provides a efficient way to block msn file transfer. By using WFilter, It is very easy for you to detect and block MSN file transfers.
A more detailed example can be found here:
Example of blocking msn
A pure peer-to-peer network does not have the notion of clients or servers, but only equal peer nodes that simultaneously function as both "clients" and "servers" to the other nodes on the network. This model of network arrangement differs from the client-server model where communication is usually to and from a central server.
Some networks and channels such as Napster, OpenNAP and IRC server channels use a client-server structure for some tasks (e.g. searching) and a peer-to-peer structure for others. Networks such as Gnutella use a peer-to-peer structure for all purposes, and are sometimes referred to as true peer-to-peer networks, although Gnutella is greatly facilitated by directory servers that inform peers of the network addresses of other peers.
As you can see from above, a peer-to-peer network is complex and it is almost impossible for you to block p2p in the router or the gateway.
WFilter provides a efficient way to block p2p traffic by signature match. By using WFilter, It is very easy for you to detect and block p2p traffic and file downloading.
WFilter related features:
- Detect p2p traffic in your network.
- Implement a policy to block certain p2p traffic.
- Support over 30 p2p protocols, cover most common p2p softwares.
- Define a file extension list forbidden from being download.
AOL Instant Messenger (often referred to as "AIM") is an instant messaging application that allows registered users to communicate in real time via text, voice, and video transmission over the Internet. It is maintained by AOL LLC. The official website is www.aim.com.
AIM is widely used all over the world. However, employees are using AIM to chat privacy topics, send and receive files, which will decrease working productivity, waste time and raise security risk.
So it is important to block AIM in enterprise network.
How to block AIM in your network?
AIM messenger can connect in several ways. Default is TCP port 5190. However, if you block AIM port 5190 in your firewall. It will turn to use port 80, 443 instead. And also, AIM messenger can use a HTTP/SOCK4/SOCK5 proxy server to reach the server. Even the worth, AIM traffics through port 80 using HTTP protocol, if you allow your employees to browser website, the 80 port must be available. And AIM has official clients, and many unofficial clients like gaim, trillian are also popular.
So, is blocking AIM mission impossible?
Of course not, but professional internet filter tools are needed. To block aim traffic, it needs the blocking aim tool has the ability to pick up aim traffic from large amount of connections.
I recommend you use WFilter to block aim, block msn and block messenger.
WFilter related features:
- Monitor AIM and ICQ messenger usage.
- Record chat contents of AIM and ICQ.
- Record files transfered by AIM/ICQ.
- Implement a policy to block AIM/ICQ or certain AIM/ICQ accounts.
- Block AIM file transfers, block icq file transfers.
- Support offical messenger client and other third party clients like gaim, trillian.
WFilter other monitor features:
Chat Monitor, MSN Messenger Chat Monitor, Yahoo Chat Monitor and other instant messenger monitor, block MSN, block Yahoo, block AIM, and other instant messenger block, block p2p, block p2p traffic, filter internet, block internet, internet monitor, monitor employee internet activity...
Wireless communication brings fundamental changes to data networking and telecommunications. Now days, more and more organizations and home users build up wireless networks. And in many situations, wired networks and wireless networks exist together. This topic demonstrates a solution to monitor wireless networks internet activities.
A typical network contains both wired and wireless networks:
To monitor both the wired network and the wireless network, we add a tplink port mirror switch TL-SL2210WEB here.
Port1 of it is connected to the router, port2 connected to WFilter and port3 connected to the wireless Access Point.
The port mirror configuration is as below:
By now, you can monitor all the wireless computers.
WFilter Deployment
----Using Dlink2366
A company use a router connected to internet. A Dlink2366 as the central switch.
The network topology diagram:
In this issue, we only need to do port mirroring in the Dlink2366 to do monitoring.
Dlink 2366 port mirror configuration:
As in the diagram above, port 16 is connected with the router and port 1 is connected to the computer with WFilter installed on.
WFilter related features:
Chat Monitor, Monitor employees, internet monitor, msn chat monitor, aim monitor, yahoo monitor, block p2p, block msn, block aim, block yahoo, block messenger, filter internet.
WFilter Deployment
---- CISCO2950 + ISA2004
Company A use ISA server 2004 as the proxy server, a cisco 2950 switch as the central switch.
The topology diagram:
For this kind of topology, we have two solutions:
Solution 1: Install WFilter at the ISA server computer can directly monitor all computers.
Solution 2: Install WFilter at another computer and configure port mirror at cisco 2950.
Notice: By default, WFilter only analysis traffic between local network and the internet. So if you are using a local proxy server, WFilter will not analysis the traffic between the proxy server and the client computers by default. You need to add the proxy server ip address to "Local Servers" in "Monitor Settings" of WFilter to make WFilter work.
How to configure port mirror of CISCO 2950?
As indicated in the above diagram, the ISA server is connected to port 23 of the switch and WFilter is connected to port 22. To make WFilter work, you only need to mirror port 23's traffic to port 22.
Syntax:
monitor session session_number {destination {interface interface-id [, | -] [encapsulation {dot1q}] [ingress vlan vlan id] | remote vlan vlan-id reflector-port interface-id} | {source {interface interface-id [, | -] [both | rx | tx] | remote vlan vlan-id}}
In this example:
1. Set port 23 as the source mirror port
monitor session 1 source interface Fa0/23
2. Set port 22 as the destination port
monitor session 1 destination interface Fa0/22 ingress vlan 1
Notice: By default, the mirror port of cisco 2950 is recv-only. However, WFilter shall be able to send packages to implement block features. So in this example, we add "ingress vlan 1" to enable send of port 22.
Some cisco switch do not support ingress syntax, if your switch does not support ingress, you can set a different "blocking adaptor". Please follow below steps:
1. Set port 23 as the source mirror port.
monitor session 1 source interface Fa0/23
2. Set port 22 as the target mirror port(recv-only)
monitor session 1 destination interface Fa0/22
3. Add a network card in the computer with WFilter install on, connected to a normal port of the switch.
4. Change the "blocking adatpor" to the new added adaptor in "Monitor Settings" of WFilter.
WFilter related features:
Chat Monitor, Monitor employees, internet monitor, msn chat monitor, aim monitor, yahoo monitor, block p2p, block msn, block aim, block yahoo, block messenger, filter internet.
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