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Comparing WSA and Cisco Umbrella

Web Security Appliance and Cisco Umbrella

WSA Versus Umbrella

Both are designed to protect against threats that occur through web traffic

Web Security Appliance On-premises proxy appliance that web traffic flows through for inspection

Cisco Umbrella Cloud based product that blocks DNS reply to malicious sites before the connection occurs

WSA Acceptable Use Controls - URL Filtering and Dynamic Content Analysis

URL Filtering

  • Legacy proxies can incorrectly categorize up to 80% of websites
  • WSA integrates into Cisco ecosystem
  • Talos determines malicious sites
  • 85 predetermined URL categories
    • Sites can change categorization based on updated information

WSA Actions

  • Monitor - Monitor traffic and compare to other settings
  • Warn - Users will have to acknowledge AUP to continue
  • Block - Deny access to the site
  • Time Based - Access to sites during preconfigured times
  • Quota Based - Daily amount of traffic or time spent on a category
  • Explicit Allow - Allow sites regardless if they fall into blocked categories
  • Redirect - Redirects traffic to another URL

The WSA allows organizations to categorize websites into custom URL categories.

Uncategorized URLs

  • If the URLs are for internal sites, create a custom category
  • WSA will use Dynamic Content Analysis engine
  • Look for words inside of the URL
  • Analyze content of site and compare to large dataset

Precedence

  • Custom URL Categories
  • Predefined URL Categories
  • Undefined URL Categories

WSA Acceptable Use Controls Application Visibility and Control

Application Visibility and Control

  • Differences between URLs and applications
  • URL filtering alone is all or nothing
  • AVC sees applications in use on the website

Categorize Applications

  • Name
  • Behavior
  • Type

WSA Actions

  • Monitor - Monitor traffic and compare to other settings
  • Bandwidth - Limit Limit the total amount of traffic on the site
  • Restrict - Application isn’t allowed but the website is
  • Block - Entire website is blocked

Anti-malware on the WSA

Dynamic Vectoring and Streaming Engine

DVS engine is a framework that allows for other systems to integrate with the WSA.

  • Webroot - Adware and spyware detection that compares URL request to signature database
  • Sophos - Malware scanning engine that uses genotype and behavioral genotype technologies
  • McAfee - Uses signatures and heuristic analysis. Allows for new threats to be detected

Sophos and McAfee can not be used at the same time. Webroot can be used with either Sophos or McAfee.

Cisco AMP Integration

  • Sends AMP SHA-256 hash of file
    • Know if the file is malicious or not
  • If hash hasn’t been seen, WSA will allow the file
  • Send AMP a copy of the file
  • AMP will update files maliciousness as more information is learned

Web Reputation Scores (WBRS)

Integrate with Talos to determine a sites score on the likelihood that it would contain malicious content

  • -10 through -6
    • Sites that have been hijacked or that are actively spreading malware
    • Block traffic to that site
  • +6 through +10
    • Widely accessed sites that have a long history of being responsible
    • Allow traffic, and not decrypt
  • -6 through +6
    • Ad syndication or user generated content
    • Allow traffic, but decrypt and scan for DLP

Cisco Umbrella Features

Traditional Firewalls and Proxies

  • Inspect the communication as it’s occurring
  • Requires traffic to be decrypted
  • Powerful devices are on-site
    • Can affect performance

Cisco Umbrella

  • Blocks DNS reply so communication never occurs
  • Relies on Cisco Talos data to know whether sites are safe or not
  • Safe sites/Whitelisted
    • Resolves DNS request to the website
  • Unsafe Sites/Blacklisted
    • DNS response goes to a block page
  • Unknown/Risky
    • DNS response goes to Umbrella’s Intelligent Proxy in the cloud

Additional Umbrella Features

  • Associates multiple related domains
    • Forexample.com and forinstance.com
    • Different domains are associated
  • Top level domain mapping
    • American Registry for Internet Numbers
    • Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre
    • Region specific domains should have region specific IP address

Intelligent Proxy

  • Used for risky sites
  • Resolve DNS request with Umbrella’s proxy IP
  • Inspect traffic, and can scale in size as needed

Umbrella Investigate

  • View real time data on a website
  • DNS requests over time
  • Integrate with Umbrella Investigate’s API

Cisco Umbrella Tiers

Free Umbrella Tier

  • Point endpoints to 208.67.220.220 or 208.67.222.222
  • Blocks websites that Umbrella knows are malicious

Umbrella DNS Security Essentials

  • Create specific policies
  • Custom URL filtering and policies
  • Block users on-premises or using the Umbrella agents
  • Reports and APl available

Umbrella DNS Security Advantage

  • Decrypt TLS traffic
  • Block direct IP communication
  • Umbrella investigate

Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway Essentials

  • Direct IPsec tunnel to Umbrella
  • Threat grid file sandboxing
  • Cloud-delivered firewall
  • Cloud Access Security Broker

All policies are configured in the Umbrella Cloud dashboard.