Enable Authentication for SafeSearch Enforcement Rule in Forefront TMG 2010
SafeSearch enforcement in Forefront TMG 2010 is a simple and effective way to prevent users on your network from accessing explicit adult content via popular search engines. Enabling SafeSearch enforcement is accomplished by opening the Forefront TMG 2010 management console, highlighting the Web Access Policy node in the navigation tree, clicking the Configure SafeSearch link in the Tasks pane and selecting the option to Enable SafeSearch.
When SafeSearch is enabled a rule is created that grants access to all users from the Internal network to all sites in the Search Engines category.
Effectively this grants unauthenticated access to many search engines including Bing, Google, and Yahoo. This level of access is quite broad and enables anonymous users to access quite a bit of content, which might not be desirable in some environments. It is not possible to change the users in the GUI either, unfortunately. However, it can be changed programmatically using COM and VBscript. For example, the following code will change the users from All Users to All Authenticated Users.
Dim Root, Array, Rule
Set Root = CreateObject("FPC.Root")
Set Array = Root.GetContainingArray()
Set Rule = Array.ArrayPolicy.PolicyRules("SafeSearch")
Rule.AccessProperties.UserSets.Add "All Authenticated Users", fpcInclude
Rule.AccessProperties.UserSets.RemoveSpecified "All Users"
Array.Save
Array.WaitForReload
Important Note: This change is not officially supported by Microsoft. If you make this change it may potentially cause other issues, so please proceed with caution.
Once the script has completed the SafeSearch rule will now apply to All Authenticated Users and prevent unwanted anonymous access to web sites categorized as Search Engines.
Forefront UAG 2010 Service Pack 3 Now Available
Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Forefront UAG 2010 is now available for download. SP3 for Forefront UAG 2010 includes several important new features and enhanced functionality, including:
Support for Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 – Full support is provided only for Internet Explorer 10 in desktop mode. The modern UI version of Internet Explorer 10 does not provide support for browser add-ons. If a user accesses the Forefront UAG 2010 portal and the trunk is configured to install and launch the UAG client components, the user will receive a message indicating that the site requires add-ons which will require the desktop version of Internet Explorer 10.
Support for the Native Windows 8 Mail App – Windows 8 users can now connect to published Exchange servers using the built-in Windows 8 modern UI mail app
Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) 8.0 client support – Windows 8 users and Windows 7 users who have upgraded to the RDC client v8.0 can now access remote desktop resources published by Forefront UAG 2010 SP3
Exchange Server 2013 – Application publishing wizards in Forefront UAG 2010 SP3 now include native support for Exchange Server 2013
SharePoint Server 2013 – Application publishing wizards in Forefront UAG 2010 SP3 now include native support for SharePoint Server 2013
Support for Office 2013 applications – Publishing Office 2013 applications such as Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and Excel is now natively supported in Forefront UAG 2010 SP3
You can download SP3 for Forefront UAG 2010 here.
Windows Server 2012 Security Book
Great news! Windows Server 2012 Security from End to Edge and Beyond is now available for pre-order! Yuri Diogenes along with Tom and Deb Shinder are the authors of this forthcoming title from Syngress Publishing which covers architecting, designing, planning, and deploying Windows Server 2012 security solutions. I have the privilege of serving as the technical reviewer of the book and I can tell you from experience it will be a vital reference that anyone working with Windows Server 2012 will want to have in their library. Pre-order your copy today!
Hotfix Rollup 3 for Forefront TMG 2010 SP2 Now Available
Hotfix rollup 3 for Microsoft Forefront TMG 2010 with Service Pack 2 is now available for download. This latest hotfix rollup includes fixes for the following issues:
KB2700248 – A server that is running Forefront TMG 2010 may stop accepting all new connections and may become unresponsive
KB2761736 - All servers in a load balanced web farm may become unavailable in Forefront TMG 2010
KB2761895 - The Firewall service (wspsrv.exe) may crash when the firewall policy rules are reevaluated in Forefront TMG 2010
KB2780562 - PPTP connections through Forefront TMG 2010 may be unsuccessful when internal clients try to access a VPN server on the external network
KB2780594 - A non-web-proxy client in a Forefront TMG 2010 environment cannot open certain load-balanced websites when TMG HTTPS inspection is enabled
KB2783332 - You cannot log on when FQDN is used and authentication delegation is set to “Kerberos constrained delegation” in a Forefront TMG 2010 environment
KB2783339 - A closed connection to a domain controller is never reestablished when authentication delegation is set to “Kerberos constrained delegation” in a Forefront TMG 2010 environment
KB2783345 - Unexpected authentication prompts while you use an OWA website that is published by using Forefront TMG 2010 when RSA authentication and FBA are used
KB2785800 - A “DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL stop error may occur on a server that is running Forefront TMG 2010
KB2790765 - A “Host Not Found (11001)” error message occurs when an SSL site is accessed by using a downstream Forefront TMG 2010 server that has HTTPS Inspection enabled
You can download hotfix rollup 3 for Forefront TMG 2010 SP2 here. After applying this update, the new Forefront TMG 2010 build number will be 7.0.9193.575.
PAL v2.3.3 Now with Forefront UAG 2010 Support
Recently the Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool was updated and now includes a threshold file for Forefront UAG 2010. PAL is an essential utility that can make troubleshooting performance issues or capacity planning dramatically easier. I’ve written about using PAL on Forefront TMG 2010 in the past, and using PAL with Forefront UAG 2010 will be very similar. You can download the latest release of PAL at pal.codeplex.com.
Forefront TMG 2010 Replacement Options
Since Microsoft formally announced the end of life for the venerable Forefront TMG 2010 firewall, the most common question I hear is “What should I replace my Forefront TMG firewall with?” It’s an excellent question, and one that I can’t really answer for you definitively. Since Microsoft has elected to leave this space entirely, you’ll obviously be replacing it with a solution from another vendor. But which one? Well, the answer is “it depends”. There are many excellent firewalls, web proxies, and secure web gateways on the market today. So-called “Next Generation Firewalls” are gaining in popularity as well, and provide some interesting capabilities a security administrator can leverage to provide increased protection for their corporate networks. Which one to choose depends on many factors, and will vary greatly depending on your deployment scenario. My suggestion when evaluating potential replacements for your Forefront TMG 2010 firewall is to take a look at your current configuration, review your corporate security policy to determine network security requirements, then begin researching products that include the features you need. If you take a look at the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways or Next Generation Firewalls and choose a product in the leaders or challengers quadrants you will probably be satisfied. Regardless which solution you choose, demand a proof-of-concept or insist on an evaluation period with which you can return the product for a full refund if it doesn’t meet your needs or expectations. Be open-minded during the process, as you’re not likely to have the comfort level with the new solution as you do with your existing Forefront TMG 2010 firewall. If you are using your Forefront TMG 2010 firewall as a dedicated remote access solution, I would encourage you to look closely at Windows Server 2012 remote access VPN and especially DirectAccess.
Keep in mind that although Microsoft has announced the end of life for Forefront TMG 2010, it will still be supported for many years to come. You will have full feature functionality until the end of 2015, and the product will be supported in some fashion until early 2020 so there’s no need to rush. Perhaps the best replacement for Forefront TMG 2010 hasn’t even been created yet! If you have questions about Forefront TMG 2010 replacements, or you are in the process of evaluating another solution to replace your existing Forefront TMG firewall today, feel free to ask questions or share your experiences by commenting below. Thanks!
Forefront TMG 2010 Configuration Change Tracking Description Quick Tip
Configuration change tracking is an important tool that can be leveraged by Forefront TMG 2010 firewall administrators to audit changes made to the policy and configuration of TMG. This feature originally appeared with ISA 2006 SP1 and was optionally enabled by the administrator. Beginning with Forefront TMG 2010 this feature is now enabled by default. When applying changes made to TMG, the administrator is prompted to enter a description of the change which is included in the change tracking log.
If you check the box Do not show this prompt again you will, of course, not be prompted to enter descriptions for applied changes in the future. If you later decide you’d like to have this feature back, highlight the Troubleshooting node in the navigation tree and select the Change Tracking tab in the main window. In the Tasks pane click Configure Change Tracking and check the box next to Show prompt for a change description when applying configuration changes.
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