SonicOS 7.0 Rules and Policies for Classic Mode

Email Control

App Rules can be very effective for certain types of email control, especially when a blanket policy is desired. For example, you can prevent sending attachments of a given type, such as .exe, on a per-user basis, or for an entire domain. Because the file name extension is being matched in this case, changing the extension before sending the attachment will bypass filtering. Note that you can also prevent attachments in this way on your email server if you have one. If not, then App Rules provides the functionality.

You can create a match object that scans for file content matching strings, such as confidential, internal use only, and proprietary, to implement basic controls over the transfer of proprietary data.

You can also create a policy that prevents email to or from a specific domain or a specific user. You can use App Rules to limit email file size, but not to limit the number of attachments. App Rules can block files based on MIME type. It cannot block encrypted SSL or TLS traffic, nor can it block all encrypted files. To block encrypted email from a site that is using HTTPS, you can create a custom match object that matches the certificate sent before the HTTPS session begins. This is part of the SSL session before it gets encrypted. Then you would create a custom policy that blocks that certificate.

App Rules can scan email attachments that are text-based or are compressed to one level, but not encrypted. The following table lists file formats that App Rules can scan for keywords. Other formats should be tested before you use them in a policy.

File Formats That Can Be Scanned For Keywords
File Type Common Extension
C source code c
C+ source code cpp
Comma-separated values csv
HQX archives hqx
HTML htm
Lotus 1-2-3 wks
Microsoft Access mdb
Microsoft Excel xls
Microsoft PowerPoint ppt
Microsoft Visio vsd
Microsoft Visual Basic vbp
Microsoft Word doc
Microsoft Works wps
Portable Document Format pdf
Rich Text Format rft
SIT archives sit
Text files txt
WordPerfect wpd
XML xml
Tar archives (“tarballs”) tar
ZIP archives zip, gzip

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