DoS protection

DoS protection

Denial of Service (DoS) policies are primarily used to apply DoS anomaly checks to network traffic based on the FortiGate interface it is entering as well as the source and destination addresses. DoS checks are a traffic anomaly detection feature to identify network traffic that does not fit known or common traffic patterns and behavior. A common example of anomalous traffic is the denial of service attack. A denial of service occurs when an attacking system starts an abnormally large number of sessions with a target system. The large number of sessions slows down or disables the target system, so that legitimate users can no longer use it.

DoS policies are similar to firewall policies except that instead of defining the way traffic is allowed to flow, they keep track of certain traffic patterns and attributes and will stop traffic displaying those attributes. Further, DoS policies affect only incoming traffic on a single interface. You can further limit a DoS policy by source address, destination address, and service.

DoS configurations have been changed a couple of times in the past. In FortiOS 4.0, DoS protection is moved to the interface policy, so when it is enabled, it is the first thing checked when a packet enters FortiGate. Because of this early detection, DoS policies are a very efficient defense that uses few resources. Denial of service attacks, for example, are detected and its packets dropped before requiring security policy look-ups, antivirus scans, and other protective but resource-intensive operations.

A DoS policy examines network traffic arriving at an interface for anomalous patterns usually indicating an attack. This does not mean that all anomalies experience by the firewall are the result of an intentional attack.

Because an improperly configured DoS anomaly check can interfere with network traffic, no DoS checks are preconfigured on a factory default FortiGate unit. You must create your own before they will take effect. Thresholds for newly created sensors are preset with recommended values that you can adjust to meet the needs of your network.

To create a Denial of Service policy determine if it needs to be an IPv4 or IPv6 policy, then go to:

Policy & Objects > IPv4 DoS Policy for IPv4.

Policy & Objects > IPv6 DoS Policy for IPv6.

The Enable SSH Deep Scan feature is enabled by default when creating a new

SSL/SSH Inspection profile. There are situations were this feature can cause issues so be sure that you would like it enabled before applying it.

Settings used in configuring DoS

Incoming interface

The interface to which this security policy applies. It will be the that the traffic is coming into the firewall on.

Source address

This will be the address that the traffic is coming from and must be a address listed in the Address section of the Firewall Objects. This can include the predefined “all” address which covers any address coming in on any interface. Multiple addresses or address groups can be chosen

Destination address

This will be the address that the traffic is addressed to. In this case it must be an address that is associated with the firewall itself. For instance it could be one of the interface address of the firewall, a secondary IP address or the interface address assigned to a Virtual IP address. Just like with the Source Address this address must be already configured before being used in the DoS policy. Multiple addresses, virtual IPs or virtual IP groups can be chosen.

Service

While the Service field allows for the use of the ALL service some administrators prefer to optimize the resources of the firewall and only check on the services that will be answered on an interface. Multiple services or service groups can be chosen.

Anomalies

The anomalies can not be configured by the user. They are predefined sensors set up for specific patterns of anomalous traffic

The anomalies that have been predefined for use in the DoS Policies are:

Status

The status field is enabled to enable the sensor for the associated anomaly. In terms of actions performed there is no difference between disabling a sensor and having the action as “Pass” but by disabling sensors that are not being used for blocking or logging you can save some resources of the firewall that can be better used elsewhere.

Logging

Regardless of whether the traffic is blocked or passed through the anomalous traffic will be logged.

Pass

Allows the anomalous traffic to pass through unimpeded.

Block

For Thresholds based on the number of concurrent sessions blocking the anomaly will not allow more than the number of concurrent sessions set as the threshold.

For rate based thresholds where the threshold is measured in packets per second, the Action setting “Block” prevents the overwhelming of the firewall by anomalous traffic in one of 2 ways. Setting which of those 2 ways will be issued is determined in the CLI.

l continuous – blocks packets once an anomaly is detected. This overrides individual anomaly settings. l periodical – allows matching anomalous traffic up to the rate set by the threshold.

If the period for a particular anomaly is 60 seconds, such as those where the threshold is measured in concurrent sessions, after the 60 second timer has expired, the number of allowed packets that match the anomaly criteria is reset to zero. This means that if you allow 10 sessions through before blocking, after the 60 seconds is up, another 10 will be allowed. The attrition of sessions from expiration should keep the allowed sessions from reaching the maximum.

To set the type of block action for the rate based anomaly sensors:

config ips global set anomaly-mode continuous set anomaly-mode periodical end

Threshold

The threshold can be either in terms of concurrent session or in packets per second depending on which sensor is being referred to.

Quarantine

The quarantine feature is found in the CLI. This setting is used to block any further traffic from a source address that is now considered to be a malicious actor or a source of traffic dangerous to the network. Not only is no more traffic accepted for the duration of the quarantine through the DoS policy but the source IP address of the traffic is added to the banned source ip list. This list is kept in the kernel and used by

l Antivirus l Data Leak Prevention (DLP) l Denial of Service (DoS) l Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)

Any policies that use any of these features will block traffic from the attacker’s IP address.

Syntax

config firewall {DoS-policy|DoS-policy6} edit <policyid> set quarantine {none|attacker} set quarantine-exipiry {string} set quarantine-log {enable|disable}

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