Security Basics mailing list archives

Re: File Catching Firewall?


From: Brian Guy <brian () sambizsys com>
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 22:03:44 -0800

We managed to not get a single MyDoom e-mail with the config below. This approach blocks about 95% of our spam overall.

1. Postfix 2.0 does initial blocks for obvious spam (e.g., DNS blacklists for open relays, spoofing our IP in HELO, etc.). See O'Reilly book on Postfix 2.0 for more info.

2. Advosys Mail Filter filters out dangerous attachments, as defined by you. You decide what file extensions can come through, what gets blocked. We block all executable and script extenstions, but we allow PDF and a few others.

3. SpamAssassin does content based filtering and some additional DNS blacklist lookups that we didn't want to block at the MTA level (due to risk of false positives). We significantly raised the scores assigned to some of the DNS blacklists so that the messages will get tagged as spam, but they don't immediately bounce as do the DNS blacklist checks we do at the MTA level.

I never saw any MyDoom messages with the attachment stripped by Advosys, so all of our MyDoom mail apparently got stopped by Postfix. I'm still in shock that none got through.

Regardless of whether you do the Postfix filtering, Advosys should do what you're wanting. Just search for it on Google and you should find the source code (it's just a Perl script if I remember correctly).

Good luck!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Haith [mailto:jhaith () genesissys com] Sent: 3. februar 2004 22:08
To: securityfocus
Subject: File Catching Firewall?

Was asked to look into maybe putting in a Linux box in front of our mail
server to stop the massive amounts of email attachments we have been
receiving as of late due to 'MyDoom'. We currently have a WG FireBoxII and
software on our Mail Server that is supposed to be catching everything, but
with so much coming in it's missing alot. I was wondering if anyone had any
ideas on some type of solution for this, all input is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Jason Haith
Genesis Systems


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Ethical Hacking at InfoSec Institute. Mention this ad and get $720 off any course! All of our class sizes are guaranteed to be 10 students or less. We provide Ethical Hacking, Advanced Ethical Hacking, Intrusion Prevention, and many other technical hands on courses. Visit us at http://www.infosecinstitute.com/securityfocus to get $720 off any course! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethical Hacking at InfoSec Institute. Mention this ad and get $720 off any course! All of our class sizes are guaranteed to be 10 students or less. We provide Ethical Hacking, Advanced Ethical Hacking, Intrusion Prevention, and many other technical hands on courses. Visit us at http://www.infosecinstitute.com/securityfocus to get $720 off any course! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


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