Does anyone know how to block Instant Message attachments at firewall? 2

[skhoury]

Hello all,

We have a problem here: several employees are recieving all sorts of junk files via IM applications like AIM, MSN, or Yahoo.

Does anyone know how to block this sort of traffic at the firewall without stopping the actual use of IM?

I know its possible, just not sure if it can be done only using our PIX515E.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Sam

 

[Tekmazter]

I know the update to version 7 allows for filtering of IM content, but to what extent I don't know. I'm still on 6.3. Ideally what you would need to figure out is what port the data is transferred etc... if you find that out first, I am sure you could create a custom ACL to block it. If it's totally dynamic or based entirely on the same ports as chat traffic, then it would be very difficult.

 

[N0ktar]

You can always ask the users to stop, if they fail to comply you can block IM entirely with IM Detector, it's free and it works quite well.

http://www.imlogic.com/products/im_detectorpro.asp

 

[skhoury]

Thanks to both of you for great suggestions.

N0ktar - awesome free tool!

FYI...Here is a site that lists all the ports used by some of the IM apps. Good to implement on the PIX.

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~rakerman/port-table.html#WinMess

 

[DanInRaleigh]

i guess you ansrd your own question. after you blocked the ports how is instant messeging working now?