Proxy mode inspection use case

Proxy mode inspection use case

Because proxy mode provides the most thorough inspection, it is recommended that you apply proxy inspection to policies where preventing a data leak or malicious content is critical.

The following scenarios demonstrate common use cases for proxy inspection.

Scenario 1

Your organization deals with sensitive data on a regular basis and a data leak would significantly harm your business. At the same time, you wish to protect your employees from malicious content, such as viruses and phishing emails, which could be used to gain access to your network and the sensitive data on your systems.

In this scenario, a proxy inspection policy is recommended to prioritize network security. We want traffic inspection to be as thorough as possible to avoid any data leaks from exiting the LAN and any malicious content from entering it. On this policy, we will apply the virus filter, DLP filter, web filter, and email filter all operating in proxy mode.

Scenario 2

You have a corporate mail server in your domain, which is used by your employees for everyday business activities. You want to protect your employees from phishing emails and viruses. At the same time, you want to also protect your web servers from external attacks.

In this scenario, a proxy inspection policy is recommended to prioritize the safety of employee emails. Applying the antivirus and email filter in this mode allows us to most reliably filter out any malware and spam emails received by the mail servers via SMTP or MAPI. The IPS sensor can be used to prevent DOS attacks on the mail servers.


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This entry was posted in Administration Guides, FortiGate, FortiOS 6.2 on by .

About Mike

Michael Pruett, CISSP has a wide range of cyber-security and network engineering expertise. The plethora of vendors that resell hardware but have zero engineering knowledge resulting in the wrong hardware or configuration being deployed is a major pet peeve of Michael's. This site was started in an effort to spread information while providing the option of quality consulting services at a much lower price than Fortinet Professional Services. Owns PacketLlama.Com (Fortinet Hardware Sales) and Office Of The CISO, LLC (Cybersecurity consulting firm).

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