Forum Discussion

Alex Durrant's avatar
Alex Durrant
Copper Contributor
Apr 20, 2023

MDE Web Filtering - 3rd party Browsers

Hi all,

We're looking to setup MDE web filtering with hopefully support 3rd party browsers too. I wanted to check my understanding.

  • I have added one category of 'Streaming Media & Downloads', this seems to be quite broad as it blocks bbc.co.uk/news too? And loads of CDN websites when say browsing msn.com too, 135 block events within 5 minutes within MDE advanced hunting, is this normal?
  • Custom indicators only seem to work within MSEdge, for example, with the same above category blocked, I put in an exception for Youtube.com, it only allowed this within MSEdge. Firefox \ Chrome and Opera were still blocked, is there anyway around this or is this just the way it is?
  • My concerns are that because the categories are quite broad and we utilise 3rd party browsers, exceptions or additional blocks won't be possible (only on MSEdge).

Am I understanding this correctly? Is there anything else I can do to get around the above concerns?

Thanks

5 Replies

  • rahuljindal's avatar
    rahuljindal
    Bronze Contributor
    Apr 21, 2023
    Are other Indicators, Web content rules working on 3rd party browsers? Also, Web content filtering and IoC can take 20-30 minutes to come into effect.
    • Alex Durrant's avatar
      Alex Durrant
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 28, 2023
      Good day,

      No, the behaviour is consistent between all 3rd party browsers, I am using Chrome/Firefox/Opera as a test base. I think it may be down to what address format I am using based on the previous comment on this thread though.
      • Jonhed's avatar
        Jonhed
        Iron Contributor
        Apr 28, 2023
        Domain indicators (youtube.com) works across all browsers, so there is no need to create multiple indicators.
  • Jonhed's avatar
    Jonhed
    Iron Contributor
    Apr 21, 2023

    MDE web filtering is supported within 3rd party browsers as well, though it is enforced differently.
    Edge is protected by Smartscreen, while 3rd party browsers are protected by MDAV Network Protection.

    As for indicators, there are differences here too.
    Domain indicators, such as "youtube.com" work with 3rd party browsers. (You cannot include "https://" in the indicator here)
    Full path indicators that targets secure HTTPS URLs, such as "https://www.youtube.com" only work with Edge.

    How did you create the exception for youtube.com?

    • Alex Durrant's avatar
      Alex Durrant
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 28, 2023
      Thank you for your response. I think this is where I was going wrong, I was inputting https://youtube.com as an indicator, for 3rd party browsers, should this be just youtube.com? If so, is it okay to use that URL for both Edge and 3rd party or is it recommended to add both https://youtube.com and youtube.com for completeness?

      Thanks

Resources