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Threat intelligence-based filtering#

Security · Firewall · Rule · 2023_09 · Critical

Deny high confidence malicious IP addresses, domains and URLs.

Description#

Threat intelligence-based filtering can optionally be enabled on Azure Firewall, by associating one or more policies with threat intelligence-based filtering configured.

When configured, Azure Firewall alerts and deny traffic to/from known malicious IP addresses, domains and URLs.

By default, threat intelligence-based filtering is enabled and in alert mode on each policy unless otherwise is specified.

By configuring threat intelligence-based filtering in alert and deny mode, threat intelligence-based filtering may deny traffic before any configured rules are processed.

Recommendation#

Consider configuring Azure Firewall to alert and deny IP addresses, domains and URLs detected as malicious.

Configure with Azure template#

To deploy Azure Firewall polices that pass this rule:

  • Set the properties.threatIntelMode to Deny.

For example:

Azure Template snippet
{
  "type": "Microsoft.Network/firewallPolicies",
  "apiVersion": "2023-04-01",
  "name": "[parameters('name')]",
  "location": "[parameters('location')]",
  "properties": {
    "sku": {
      "tier": "Premium"
    },
    "threatIntelMode": "Deny"
  }
}

Configure with Bicep#

To deploy Azure Firewall polices that pass this rule:

  • Set the properties.threatIntelMode to Deny.

For example:

Azure Bicep snippet
resource firewallPolicy 'Microsoft.Network/firewallPolicies@2023-04-01' = {
  name: name
  location: location
  properties: {
    sku: {
      tier: 'Premium'
    }
    threatIntelMode: 'Deny'
  }
}

Notes#

Azure Firewall Premium SKU is required for associating standalone resource firewall policies. Only Standard and Premium firewall policies supports threat intelligence-based filtering in alert and deny mode.

In order to take advantage of URL filtering with HTTPS traffic included in threat intelligence-based filtering, TLS inspection must be configured first.

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