Commenting on existing firewall rules can be done by doing the following in WebAdmin: community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/116144#Configure%20Radius%20Server%20(UTM) Overly permissive rules pose a risk to the business because they allow unintentional traffic to pass through the firewall. An organization must tighten overly permissive rules for source addresses, destination addresses, and required destination services or ports. To do this, without affecting the organization`s operations or accidentally causing a denial of service, organizations should monitor the rules to identify the traffic that matches them. Rules must be monitored for a sufficient period of time determined by the organization. Once the data is collected and analyzed, the company can tighten the firewall rule to match the identified traffic. Organizations should consider using a remote syslog server to collect logs and limit auditing to a small number of rules. Enforcing password complexity rules that comply with the organization`s password policy ensures that accounts are protected by complex passwords that are difficult to guess, or brute force. Password complexity is common in Windows Active Directory, but is overlooked on network devices. Inactive rules make it difficult to effectively manage firewall rule groups.
2) The option in the drop-down list “Sort by” is changed to “Status asc” by default. This option sorts the rules so that inactive rules appear at the top of the list. Inactive rules are indicated by the switch, which appears in gray with the symbol “O” instead of green with the symbol “I”. Overly permissive rules from the internal network to external sources could allow data to be exfiltrated from the internal network and allow compromised hosts to communicate with command and control servers. Traffic out of the internal network and DMZ should be limited to the resources and services that users need to do their jobs. Changes to this setting do not affect existing passwords. Therefore, a password change must be required for all existing accounts when changing password complexity rules. Note that it may be acceptable to reduce complexity requirements by compensating for a longer minimum password length, such as when passphrases are preferred. Each rule has a unique ID value with numbers starting with 200*, and they can be used on a remote syslog server to search logs related to a particular rule. Another list of Logmark values can be found here: community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/115029 In addition to forcing the use of a web proxy through Group Policy, it is recommended to apply it on the edge firewall as well to ensure that it cannot be bypassed.
This can be achieved by allowing the proxy address to access external websites only via HTTP or HTTPS and preventing all other internal hosts from sending traffic to external destinations using HTTP or HTTPS. This document provides basic guidance on how to secure the Sophos XG firewall at a minimum level. The document does not provide guidance on every feature of XG Firewall, which in turn can protect internal devices and network resources (a full best practices guide for Sophos XG Firewall will be released in due course). To block or unblock an IP address, you must create two network firewall rules, as shown in the following figure: Next, create a network group, Cybersponse_block_ip in our sample name and add that name to the two rules you created. When you configure your Sophos UTM connector in FortiSOAR, ™ you must use the name you specified in this step as the configuration setting for the IP blocking policy name. In our example, use Cybersponse_block_ip in the IP Blocking Policy Name box. A default deny rule ensures that traffic is rejected by default without specific rules that allow it. By default, Sophos UTM has a default global deny rule that removes all incoming traffic, even if the rule does not appear in WebAdmin. Network protection – > firewall. In one of the rules, click Edit, and then click Advanced.
Check the “Record traffic” box and set the time period in the drop-down menu. Sophos has published this guide to secure your firewall at a minimum: www.sophos.com/en-us/medialibrary/PDFs/documentation/utm9501_manual_eng.pdf Source: community.sophos.com/products/xg-firewall/f/recommended-reads/121461/sophos-xg-firewall-best-practices-for-securing-your-firewall However, we recommend that you add an explicit “Deny All” rule at the end of the list of rules for TCP connections to and from the WAN interface and for the LAN interface. Firewalls are used as the primary defense of a company`s network infrastructure and are used to prevent unauthorized access to or from the private network. The objective of this article is to provide network administrators with guidance on securing Sophos UTM firewalls. Sophos, along with Check Point, FortiNet, Juniper and Cisco, is just one of the vendors that offer such solutions to many companies. Adding a clear description to each rule indicating the possession, date, and purpose of the rule, or a reference to the ticket, is critical to determining whether a rule is still required or could potentially be deleted. This makes it easier to clean up and generally manage firewall rules. An example of ports that can be classified as high risk is shown below: The comment may include a technical support ticket number related to the change or a reference number for the change control request, depending on how the organization operates. Go to Definition and Users -> Authentication Services -> Server. Click “New Authentication Server” and select TACACS+ from the drop-down menu on the backend.
1) Go to Network Protection -> Firewall and select “Status” from the “Sort by” drop-down menu The following steps can be used to configure a syslog server with WebAdmin: 2) Click the plus button in “Syslog Server” and specify the server name, IP address or network object where the syslog server and the port or service object is located. Go to Network Protection -> Firewall. Click Edit to edit the rule. Refine settings such as “Destinations” and “Services” and click “Save” to confirm. To enter the host name instead of the IPv4 address, select DNS Host from the Type drop-down list. 6) The new user will be added to the list, click “Save”. Applying account lockout protects accounts from password guessing and brute force attacks. Combined with the application of password complexity, this reduces the likelihood of an account being compromised by password guessing or brute force attacks. Unified threat management (UTM) simplifies security, and Sophos UTM provides a network security suite with everything you need in a single, modular appliance.
It simplifies your IT security without the complexity of multiple point solutions. The intuitive interface helps you quickly create policies to control security risks, and clear, detailed reports give you the information you need to improve your network`s performance and protection. The JSON output contains a status message indicating whether URLs have been successfully blocked. 2) Add a new rule by clicking on “+ New rule…” » Button. In the pop-up window, select Decline from the Action drop-down list. For more information about configuring LDAP for Sophos UTM, see Section 5.7.2.3 LDAP in the following article: Telnet and HTTP are disabled by default and Sophos does not allow the use of these protocols for administrative access, so nothing needs to be changed to disable these services. On the Advanced tab, select the interface through which you want to authenticate users, and then add the TACACS+ server name and IP address and TACACS+ settings, such as port number and symmetric server secret, provided by the TACACS+ server administrator. Assigning individual administrator accounts ensures that each action can be traced back to the user responsible for that action. In addition, different permission levels can be assigned to individual users to grant only the access required by their role. Combined with user authorization, this allows for fine-grained control over which operations each user can access and ensures that the principle of least privilege can be applied. 3) Click “Save” and then “Apply” to save the changes.
After adding a server, go to “Remote Syslog Log Selection” and select the type of logs to send to the remote syslog server, e.g. Firewall If internal users are allowed free access to the Internet, they may inadvertently visit phishing websites or malicious websites that host malware. This can compromise the internal network. It is acceptable to increase the lock value of the default 3 attempts to a slightly higher value such as 5 attempts, as this does not significantly support a brute force attack and can fix accidental interfering locks with a lower value. Note: If you want to use one of the sample playbooks in your environment, be sure to clone those playbooks and move them to another collection, as the sample playbook collection will be removed when you upgrade and remove the connector. Services may be considered high risk for a number of reasons. They are used by plaintext protocols, provide privileged access, or are often attacked by attackers due to the popularity or vulnerabilities of the underlying software. Whenever possible, it is recommended to restrict access to these ports/services to trusted sources in order to reduce the organization`s potential attack surface.