I get a lot of questions about how can ISA Server be used to block dangerous applications. What is a dangerous application? I suppose that depends on whom you ask, but the following list includes some of the most frequently mentioned:
- MSN Instant Messenger
- AOL Instant Messenger
- ICQ
- Yahoo Instant Messenger
I consider all of these applications dangerous. These applications allow file transfer and communications to bypass the ISA Server's normal filtering and content management systems. If you're looking for a secure networking environment, it's a good idea to block all of these.
Configuring ISA Server 2000 : Building Firewalls for Windows 2000
By Deb and Tom Shinder
Amazon.com Instant Messengers have more than just negative security effects. You should consider lost productivity due non-business related "chatting" and interruptions to the normal work flow. While Instant Messaging is useful for pre-teen girls checking up on the status of their Hello Kitty, they don't have much use in a business environment.
The exception to this is when Instant Messengers are used to allow employees to communicate with each other on the corporate network. Instant Messengers can be put to good use on the internal corporate network as a supplement to phone calls and email messages.
We need some way to prevent these applications from interacting with Internet users. The best way to handle this is to devise a network usage policy that forbids the use of these applications and have the management back up this policy. Management support is a must if you want the usage policy to have some teeth in it.
After the network usage policy is in place, you can use the ISA Server Firewall service log and application inventory reports to determine who has been using forbidden programs. You can create a report based on these resources and present the information to the user's supervisor. This is usually quite effective in getting the offender to stop forbidden behavior.
However, not all businesses are able or desire to prevent dangerous application usage in this sort of "up front" manner. Companies have different corporate cultures. You may find yourself with no support for a network usage policy. If this is your situation, you'll need to implement "stealth" measures to prevent users from compromising network security.
A great way to do this is by taking advantage of the Firewall client. The Firewall client software can be installed on all Microsoft network capable operating systems except for Windows 3.x. You can still take advantage of the Firewall Service for Win 3.x clients by installing the Proxy Server 2.0 Winsock Proxy client on them. In fact, I recommend installing the Firewall client on
all operating systems that the Firewall client can be installed on.
Blocking Network Applications Using Firewall Client Configuration
You can make changes to the mspclnt.ini file on the ISA Server. This file contains configuration information for Firewall client machines. It is downloaded from the ISA Server to the ISA clients every six hours by default. This file is stored in different locations on the client machines depending on the operating system.
Your first step is to figure out what the name of the executable file is for the offensive application. The following list includes the common dangerous applications and their .exe files:
- AOL Instant Messenger - AIM.EXE
- MSN Instant Messenger - MSMSGS.EXE
- Yahoo Instant Messenger - YPAGER.EXE and YUPDATER.EXE
- ICQ - ICQ.EXE
After you figure out the executable file name you can configure the mspclnt.ini file to block network communications from the application.
Perform the following steps to configure the mspclnt.ini file:
- Open the ISA Management console, expand Servers and Arrays and expand your server. Click on the Client Configuration node, and then double click on the Firewall Client entry in the right pane.
- You will see the Firewall Client Properties dialog box as seen in the figure below. Click the New button.
- After clicking the New button you will see the Application Entry Settings dialog box as seen below. Type in the name of the application without the file extension in the Application text box. Type the letter D in the Key list so that Disable appears. In the Value list, type the number 1. Click OK after making these changes.
- After making the changes to block the application, you need to wait until all clients have downloaded the new mspclnt.ini file. You either have to wait for 6 hours, or you can force the clients to download the file by going to each client and clicking on the Update Now button in the Firewall client configuration dialog box.
- After each Firewall client machine has downloaded the updated mspclnt.ini file, you must disconnect all Firewall Client sessions from the ISA Server. You can do this by going to the ISA Management console and manually disconnecting the sessions (as seen in the figure below), or you can restart the Firewall Service. Restarting the Firewall Service will cause all Firewall client connections to drop.
- If any of the clients are configured as SecureNAT clients, change their configuration by removing the default gateway address. The SecureNAT client will be able to get around the limitations you set in the wspclnt.ini file. You can configure the Windows 2000 Group Policy to block user access to the Network Connections Control Panel applet.
This is the first step in your access control configuration. Because some clients must be configured as SecureNAT clients, and because all of these applications can get around the mspclnt.ini configuration, there are some more steps you'll have to perform.
Application Specifics
It would be nice if we could configure all computers as Firewall clients and leave it at that. However, like all good malware, these dangerous applications can allow outbound connections through alternative means. Many of these applications allow the user to configure them as Web Proxy or SOCKS 4 clients (ISA Server does not support SOCKS 5 out of the box).
In addition to having to deal with users who reconfigure their applications, you also have to deal with applications that can scan the network and find a hole. Some of the applications can use stealth techniques and grab the browser's Web Proxy client configuration without your knowledge. Therefore, you'll have to do more than just configure the mspclnt.ini file
Yahoo Instant Messenger
Perform the following steps to block the Yahoo Instant Messenger:
- Block the YPAGER.EXE and the YUPDATER.EXE executables in the mspclnt.ini file
- Create a Site and Content rule that blocks http.pager.yahoo.com. Remember to create a Destination Set that includes this site so that you can create the Rule.
- The SOCKS4 Application Filter must be disabled. Users can reconfigure the Yahoo IMer as SOCKS 4 or SOCKS 5 clients. ISA Server does not support SOCKS 5, but they can get out using SOCKS 4. Since few legitimate applications require SOCKS, you can safely disable the filter.
AOL Instant Messenger
Perform the following steps to block the AOL Instant Messenger:
- Block the AIM.EXE executable in the mspclnt.ini file.
- From my testing, the AOL IMer doesn't seem to be able to get around the mspclnt.ini file configuration, even if you set it up as a Web Proxy client in the AIM configuration dialog box. Therefore, you do not need to create a Site and Content Rule to block the aol.com domain.
- Like the Yahoo IMer, AOLer can get around the mspclnt.ini file configuration by setting up the application to use SOCKS 4. Therefore, you will need to disable the SOCKS4 application filter to keep this application locked out.
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