Which of these host-based firewall rules help to permit network access from a vpn subnet

All UC Berkeley IT Resources and all devices connected to the UC Berkeley network or cloud services must comply with the Minimum Security Standard for Networked Devices (MSSND). The recommendations below are provided as optional guidance to assist with achieving the Host-based Firewall Software requirement.

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MSSND Host-based Firewall Software Requirement

Network attached systems must, wherever possible, utilize host-based firewalls or access control lists (ACLs). These controls must be enabled and configured to block all inbound traffic that is not explicitly required for the intended use of the device. Use of a network-based firewall does not obviate the need for host-based firewalls.

  • Microsoft Windows, macOS, or Linux/Unix devices are all equipped with firewalls though they may not have them enabled by default. 
  • Further, many printers, and network attached equipment have access controls to restrict connections to a limited number of hosts or networks in compliance with this policy. Where available, these must be enabled. 

Background and Description of Risk

Insufficient restrictions on system access over the network increases exposure to attack from viruses, worms, and other malicious activity. Further, a lack of proper restrictions will also allow undesired access to resources such as printers. To enable proper protection, it is necessary to have a rule that denies any inbound traffic that is not specifically necessary to the proper use of the device.

Recommendations

1. Limit Remote Access

If remote access to the host is desired (e.g., via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or ssh), limit remote access to a finite number of IPs and/or subnets. If the device must be accessed from off-campus, only allow access from the campus VPN for remote connectivity.

2. Allow Incoming Traffic from Information Security Office Security Scanners

Configure your firewalls to allow network-based scanning by Information Security Office (ISO) vulnerability scanners. ISO will scan hosts on the campus network to determine if hosts are vulnerable to common network threats or if a system appears to have been compromised.

3. Additional Security

3.1 Restrict Outbound Traffic

Many times firewalls are configured such that rules are only placed on inbound traffic and allow all outbound traffic. Restricting outbound traffic provides an additional layer of security against misuse or data loss in the event of a compromised host and should be used where appropriate.

3.2 Log Firewall Activity

A firewall will reduce the likelihood of compromise, but cannot prevent all attacks. Firewall logs, if enabled, can be used to identify successful attacks. In the event of a system compromise, these logs are used in forensic analysis to determine the extent of the compromise, scope of the damage, and nature of the attack. 

When enabling logs:

  • retain at least 30 days of data; 
  • collect at least source and destination IP addresses and ports, application, protocol, direction, date and time, and rule.
  • Log files should be read only, and with write access granted only to the firewall service account.

3.3 Review Firewall Settings Periodically

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Azure Firewall FAQ

  • FAQ

In this article

What is Azure Firewall?

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service that protects your Azure Virtual Network resources. It's a fully stateful firewall-as-a-service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. You can centrally create, enforce, and log application and network connectivity policies across subscriptions and virtual networks.

What capabilities are supported in Azure Firewall?

To learn about Azure Firewall features, see Azure Firewall features.

What is the typical deployment model for Azure Firewall?

You can deploy Azure Firewall on any virtual network, but customers typically deploy it on a central virtual network and peer other virtual networks to it in a hub-and-spoke model. You can then set the default route from the peered virtual networks to point to this central firewall virtual network. Global VNet peering is supported, but it isn't recommended because of potential performance and latency issues across regions. For best performance, deploy one firewall per region.

The advantage of this model is the ability to centrally exert control on multiple spoke VNETs across different subscriptions. There are also cost savings as you don't need to deploy a firewall in each VNet separately. The cost savings should be measured versus the associate peering cost based on the customer traffic patterns.

How can I install the Azure Firewall?

You can set up Azure Firewall by using the Azure portal, PowerShell, REST API, or by using templates. See Tutorial: Deploy and configure Azure Firewall using the Azure portal for step-by-step instructions.

What are some Azure Firewall concepts?

Azure Firewall supports rules and rule collections. A rule collection is a set of rules that share the same order and priority. Rule collections are executed in order of their priority. Network rule collections are higher priority than application rule collections, and all rules are terminating.

There are three types of rule collections:

  • Application rules: Configure fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) that can be accessed from a subnet.
  • Network rules: Configure rules that contain source addresses, protocols, destination ports, and destination addresses.
  • NAT rules: Configure DNAT rules to allow incoming Internet connections.

Does Azure Firewall support inbound traffic filtering?

Azure Firewall supports inbound and outbound filtering. Inbound protection is typically used for non-HTTP protocols like RDP, SSH, and FTP protocols. For inbound HTTP and HTTPS protection, use a web application firewall such as Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) or the TLS offload and deep packet inspection capabilities of Azure Firewall Premium.

Which logging and analytics services are supported by the Azure Firewall?

Azure Firewall is integrated with Azure Monitor for viewing and analyzing firewall logs. Logs can be sent to Log Analytics, Azure Storage, or Event Hubs. They can be analyzed in Log Analytics or by different tools such as Excel and Power BI. For more information, see Tutorial: Monitor Azure Firewall logs.

How does Azure Firewall work differently from existing services such as NVAs in the marketplace?

Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service that protects your virtual network resources. It's a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. It is pre-integrated with third-party security as a service (SECaaS) providers to provide advanced security for your virtual network and branch Internet connections.

What is the difference between Application Gateway WAF and Azure Firewall?

The Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a feature of Application Gateway that provides centralized inbound protection of your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities. Azure Firewall provides inbound protection for non-HTTP/S protocols (for example, RDP, SSH, FTP), outbound network-level protection for all ports and protocols, and application-level protection for outbound HTTP/S.

What is the difference between Network Security Groups (NSGs) and Azure Firewall?

The Azure Firewall service complements network security group functionality. Together, they provide better "defense-in-depth" network security. Network security groups provide distributed network layer traffic filtering to limit traffic to resources within virtual networks in each subscription. Azure Firewall is a fully stateful, centralized network firewall as-a-service, which provides network- and application-level protection across different subscriptions and virtual networks.

Are Network Security Groups (NSGs) supported on the AzureFirewallSubnet?

Azure Firewall is a managed service with multiple protection layers, including platform protection with NIC level NSGs (not viewable). Subnet level NSGs aren't required on the AzureFirewallSubnet, and are disabled to ensure no service interruption.

How do I set up Azure Firewall with my service endpoints?

For secure access to PaaS services, we recommend service endpoints. You can choose to enable service endpoints in the Azure Firewall subnet and disable them on the connected spoke virtual networks. This way you benefit from both features: service endpoint security and central logging for all traffic.

What is the pricing for Azure Firewall?

How can I stop and start Azure Firewall?

You can use Azure PowerShell deallocate and allocate methods. For a firewall configured for forced tunneling, the procedure is slightly different.

For example, for a firewall NOT configured for forced tunneling:

# Stop an existing firewall

$azfw = Get-AzFirewall -Name "FW Name" -ResourceGroupName "RG Name"
$azfw.Deallocate()
Set-AzFirewall -AzureFirewall $azfw
# Start the firewall

$azfw = Get-AzFirewall -Name "FW Name" -ResourceGroupName "RG Name"
$vnet = Get-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName "RG Name" -Name "VNet Name"
$publicip1 = Get-AzPublicIpAddress -Name "Public IP1 Name" -ResourceGroupName "RG Name"
$publicip2 = Get-AzPublicIpAddress -Name "Public IP2 Name" -ResourceGroupName "RG Name"
$azfw.Allocate($vnet,@($publicip1,$publicip2))

Set-AzFirewall -AzureFirewall $azfw

For a firewall configured for forced tunneling, stopping is the same. But starting requires the management public IP to be re-associated back to the firewall:

# Stop an existing firewall

$azfw = Get-AzFirewall -Name "FW Name" -ResourceGroupName "RG Name"
$azfw.Deallocate()
Set-AzFirewall -AzureFirewall $azfw
# Start the firewall

$azfw = Get-AzFirewall -Name "FW Name" -ResourceGroupName "RG Name"
$vnet = Get-AzVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName "RG Name" -Name "VNet Name"
$pip= Get-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName "RG Name" -Name "azfwpublicip"
$mgmtPip2 = Get-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName "RG Name" -Name "mgmtpip"
$azfw.Allocate($vnet, $pip, $mgmtPip2)
$azfw | Set-AzFirewall

When you allocate and deallocate, firewall billing stops and starts accordingly.

Note

You must reallocate a firewall and public IP to the original resource group and subscription.

What are the known service limits?

Can Azure Firewall in a hub virtual network forward and filter network traffic between two spoke virtual networks?

Yes, you can use Azure Firewall in a hub virtual network to route and filter traffic between two spoke virtual network. Subnets in each of the spoke virtual networks must have a UDR pointing to the Azure Firewall as a default gateway for this scenario to work properly.

Can Azure Firewall forward and filter network traffic between subnets in the same virtual network or peered virtual networks?

Yes. However, configuring the UDRs to redirect traffic between subnets in the same VNET requires additional attention. While using the VNET address range as a target prefix for the UDR is sufficient, this also routes all traffic from one machine to another machine in the same subnet through the Azure Firewall instance. To avoid this, include a route for the subnet in the UDR with a next hop type of VNET. Managing these routes might be cumbersome and prone to error. The recommended method for internal network segmentation is to use Network Security Groups, which don't require UDRs.

Does Azure Firewall outbound SNAT between private networks?

Azure Firewall doesn't SNAT when the destination IP address is a private IP range per IANA RFC 1918. If your organization uses a public IP address range for private networks, Azure Firewall SNATs the traffic to one of the firewall private IP addresses in AzureFirewallSubnet. You can configure Azure Firewall to not SNAT your public IP address range. For more information, see Azure Firewall SNAT private IP address ranges.

In addition, traffic processed by application rules are always SNAT-ed. If you want to see the original source IP address in your logs for FQDN traffic, you can use network rules with the destination FQDN.

Is forced tunneling/chaining to a Network Virtual Appliance supported?

Forced tunneling is supported when you create a new firewall. You can't configure an existing firewall for forced tunneling. For more information, see Azure Firewall forced tunneling.

Azure Firewall must have direct Internet connectivity. If your AzureFirewallSubnet learns a default route to your on-premises network via BGP, you must override this with a 0.0.0.0/0 UDR with the NextHopType value set as Internet to maintain direct Internet connectivity.

If your configuration requires forced tunneling to an on-premises network and you can determine the target IP prefixes for your Internet destinations, you can configure these ranges with the on-premises network as the next hop via a user defined route on the AzureFirewallSubnet. Or, you can use BGP to define these routes.

Are there any firewall resource group restrictions?

Yes. The firewall, VNet, and the public IP address all must be in the same resource group.

When configuring DNAT for inbound Internet network traffic, do I also need to configure a corresponding network rule to allow that traffic?

No. NAT rules implicitly add a corresponding network rule to allow the translated traffic. You can override this behavior by explicitly adding a network rule collection with deny rules that match the translated traffic. To learn more about Azure Firewall rule processing logic, see Azure Firewall rule processing logic.

How do wildcards work in target URLs and target FQDNs in application rules?

  • URL - Asterisks work when placed on the right-most or left-most side. If it is on the left, it can't be part of the FQDN.
  • FQDN - Asterisks work when placed on the left-most side.
  • GENERAL - Asterisks on the left-most side mean literally anything to the left will match, meaning multiple subdomains and/or potentially unwanted domain name variations will be matched - see examples below.

Examples:

TypeRuleSupported?Positive examples
TargetURL www.contoso.com Yes www.contoso.com
www.contoso.com/
TargetURL *.contoso.com Yes any.contoso.com/
sub1.any.contoso.com
TargetURL *contoso.com Yes example.anycontoso.com
sub1.example.contoso.com
contoso.com
Warning: this usage of wildcard will also allow potentially undesired/risky variations such as th3re4lcontoso.com - use with caution.
TargetURL www.contoso.com/test Yes www.contoso.com/test
www.contoso.com/test/
www.contoso.com/test?with_query=1
TargetURL www.contoso.com/test/* Yes www.contoso.com/test/anything
Note: www.contoso.com/test will not match (last slash)
TargetURL www.contoso.*/test/* No
TargetURL www.contoso.com/test?example=1 No
TargetURL www.contoso.* No
TargetURL www.*contoso.com No
TargetURL www.contoso.com:8080 No
TargetURL *.contoso.* No
TargetFQDN www.contoso.com Yes www.contoso.com
TargetFQDN *.contoso.com Yes any.contoso.com

Note: If you want to specifically allow contoso.com, you must include contoso.com in the rule. Otherwise, the connection will be dropped by default because the request will not match any rule.

TargetFQDN *contoso.com Yes example.anycontoso.com
contoso.com
TargetFQDN www.contoso.* No
TargetFQDN *.contoso.* No

What does *Provisioning state: Failed* mean?

Whenever a configuration change is applied, Azure Firewall attempts to update all its underlying backend instances. In rare cases, one of these backend instances may fail to update with the new configuration and the update process stops with a failed provisioning state. Your Azure Firewall is still operational, but the applied configuration may be in an inconsistent state, where some instances have the previous configuration where others have the updated rule set. If this happens, try updating your configuration one more time until the operation succeeds and your Firewall is in a Succeeded provisioning state.

How does Azure Firewall handle planned maintenance and unplanned failures?

Azure Firewall consists of several backend nodes in an active-active configuration. For any planned maintenance, we have connection draining logic to gracefully update nodes. Updates are planned during non-business hours for each of the Azure regions to further limit risk of disruption. For unplanned issues, we instantiate a new node to replace the failed node. Connectivity to the new node is typically reestablished within 10 seconds from the time of the failure.

How does connection draining work?

For any planned maintenance, connection draining logic gracefully updates backend nodes. Azure Firewall waits 90 seconds for existing connections to close. If needed, clients can automatically re-establish connectivity to another backend node.

Is there a character limit for a firewall name?

Yes. There's a 50 character limit for a firewall name.

Why does Azure Firewall need a /26 subnet size?

Azure Firewall must provision more virtual machine instances as it scales. A /26 address space ensures that the firewall has enough IP addresses available to accommodate the scaling.

Does the firewall subnet size need to change as the service scales?

No. Azure Firewall doesn't need a subnet bigger than /26.

How can I increase my firewall throughput?

Azure Firewall's initial throughput capacity is 2.5 - 3 Gbps and it scales out to 30 Gbps for Standard SKU and 100 Gbps for Premium SKU. It scales out automatically based on CPU usage and throughput.

How long does it take for Azure Firewall to scale out?

Azure Firewall gradually scales when average throughput or CPU consumption is at 60%. A default deployment maximum throughput is approximately 2.5 - 3 Gbps and starts to scale out when it reaches 60% of that number. Scale out takes five to seven minutes.

When performance testing, make sure you test for at least 10 to 15 minutes, and start new connections to take advantage of newly created Firewall nodes.

How does Azure Firewall handle idle timeouts?

When a connection has an idle timeout (four minutes of no activity), Azure Firewall gracefully terminates the connection by sending a TCP RST packet.

How does Azure Firewall handle VM instance shutdowns during Virtual Machine Scale Set scale in (scale down) or fleet software upgrades?

An Azure Firewall VM instance shutdown may occur during Virtual Machine Scale Set scale in (scale down) or during fleet software upgrade. In these cases, new incoming connections are load balanced to the remaining firewall instances and are not forwarded to the down firewall instance. After 45 seconds the firewall starts rejecting existing connections by sending TCP RST packets. After an additional 45 seconds the firewall VM shuts down. For more information, see Load Balancer TCP Reset and Idle Timeout.

Does Azure Firewall allow access to Active Directory by default?

No. Azure Firewall blocks Active Directory access by default. To allow access, configure the AzureActiveDirectory service tag. For more information, see Azure Firewall service tags.

Can I exclude an FQDN or an IP address from Azure Firewall Threat Intelligence based filtering?

Yes, you can use Azure PowerShell to do it:

# Add a Threat Intelligence allowlist to an Existing Azure Firewall

# Create the allowlist with both FQDN and IPAddresses
$fw = Get-AzFirewall -Name "Name_of_Firewall" -ResourceGroupName "Name_of_ResourceGroup"
$fw.ThreatIntelWhitelist = New-AzFirewallThreatIntelWhitelist `
   -FQDN @("fqdn1", "fqdn2", …) -IpAddress @("ip1", "ip2", …)

# Or Update FQDNs and IpAddresses separately
$fw = Get-AzFirewall -Name $firewallname -ResourceGroupName $RG
$fw.ThreatIntelWhitelist.IpAddresses = @($fw.ThreatIntelWhitelist.IpAddresses + $ipaddresses)
$fw.ThreatIntelWhitelist.fqdns = @($fw.ThreatIntelWhitelist.fqdns + $fqdns)


Set-AzFirewall -AzureFirewall $fw

A TCP ping isn't actually connecting to the target FQDN. Azure Firewall doesn't allow a connection to any target IP address/FQDN unless there is an explicit rule that allows it.

TCP ping is a unique use case where if there is no allowed rule, the Firewall itself responds to the client's TCP ping request even though the TCP ping doesn't reach the target IP address/FQDN. In this case, the event is not logged. If there is a network rule that allows access to the target IP address/FQDN, then the ping request reaches the target server and its response is relayed back to the client. This event is logged in the Network rules log.

Are there limits for the number of IP addresses supported by IP Groups?

Can I move an IP Group to another resource group?

No, moving an IP Group to another resource group isn't currently supported.

What is the TCP Idle Timeout for Azure Firewall?

A standard behavior of a network firewall is to ensure TCP connections are kept alive and to promptly close them if there's no activity. Azure Firewall TCP Idle Timeout is four minutes. This setting isn't user configurable, but you can contact Azure Support to increase the idle timeout up to 30 minutes.

If a period of inactivity is longer than the timeout value, there's no guarantee that the TCP or HTTP session is maintained. A common practice is to use a TCP keep-alive. This practice keeps the connection active for a longer period. For more information, see the .NET examples.

Can I deploy Azure Firewall without a public IP address?

No, currently you must deploy Azure Firewall with a public IP address.

Where does Azure Firewall store customer data?

Azure Firewall doesn't move or store customer data out of the region it's deployed in.

Is there a way to automatically backup Azure Firewall and policies?

Is Azure Firewall in secured virtual hubs (vWAN) supported in Qatar?

No, currently Azure Firewall in secured virtual hubs (vWAN) is not supported in Qatar.

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What does a host

Host-based firewalls help detect and stop viruses, malware and other malicious scripts that may not have been caught by network security. When a host-based firewall is regularly updated and running on an individual computer, the individual computer is protected against viruses and other malicious software.

Can a host

Host-based firewalls are easy to install and protect your computer from malware, cookies, email viruses, pop-up windows, and more. Along with desktop computers, mobile devices can be installed with firewalls to protect online activity on the go.

What type of firewall inspects network traffic at a higher level in the OSI model than a traditional stateful packet inspection firewall does?

A proxy firewall (aka application-level gateway) inspects packets at the application layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model.

Which of the following will best protect individual hosts from potentially compromised peers inside a trusted network?

A host-based firewall. Host-based firewalls are important for protecting individual hosts from being compromised when they are used in untrusted, potentially malicious environments, as well as protecting them from potentially compromised peers inside a trusted network.