Remove "Proxy & Filter Avoidance" from "Threats" categorization | Voters

Remove "Proxy & Filter Avoidance" from "Threats" categorization

Adam Bulgatz

I understand it is important to block "Proxy & Filter Avoidance". However, I would not classify this as a "Threat".

Especially

because many browsers / OSes contact "proxies" by default now, giving me false-positive threats. For example, Apple visits safebrowsing.apple.

July 25, 2022

Steve Staden

Merged in a post:

Proxies and Filter Avoidance

Sean Ardizzone

Proxies and Filter Avoidance should be a filter category not just a security threat as many of these are designed to circumvent the filter protections and are WIDELY abused by children to bypass school protections.

June 23, 2023

Steve Staden

Merged in a post:

Seperate VPN's from Proxies or give a way to allow legitimate work VPN's

Sean Ardizzone

All VPN's aren't bad and some are required for work, training, etc. Can there be a way to whitelist good VPN's?

June 9, 2023

Peter Lowe (DNSFilter)

Hey Adam, I see your point of view but I'm afraid I have to disagree: any user of yours attempting to circumvent threat protection that you might have in place is opening up your network to

all

kinds of threats. This in itself is a threat to the safety of your network.

Apple's Safe Browsing (which I believe proxies Google's Safe Browsing service) is designed to protect against a certain type of threat, but is very general and shouldn't be relied on - we often see domains which are clearly hosting malware or phishing resources, which haven't been recognised by Safe Browsing yet.

Mikey @DNSFilter

Thanks for the request Adam. The Proxy & Filter Avoidance category is a challenge because, as you mentioned, many digital assets communicate with proxies to get their job done but another use is circumventing DNS protection.

Would controlling visibility of Proxy & Filter Avoidance in reporting be a good compromise for you?

Mikey @DNSFilter

Thanks for the feedback. For a short term solution, we recommend adding any known utility domains (like those used by your VPN) to the allow list of the appropriate policy for more granular control.

Erik

I've had reports of people having trouble with devices that have Covenant Eyes on our wifi. Maybe this has something to do with it. I believe CE uses a VPN. I like to use filters and accountability software in multiple layers, but that doesn't work if those layers can't work together.