How to Block Websites
Although several firms provide their staff with unrestricted internet access, this practice is not always prudent. Some websites may hinder employee productivity and expose your firm to cybersecurity risks, whether deliberate or accidental. Employees in your business or children in your house represent one of several possible cyber dangers to consider.
A potential option is to restrict user access to unsuitable, damaging, or unproductive websites. Restricting certain activities, implementing use standards, and upholding security processes may mitigate internal and external dangers.
Web filtering enhances internet security and efficiency by controlling access to specific websites and content based on established criteria. A web filtering tool evaluates each website against a set of rules and its source to decide whether to allow or block the material.
In this tutorial, we will examine why you need to block website access and how you can activate the web filtering feature on your network using Zenarmor.
Why Do You Need to Block Websites?
The advantages of web filtering for domestic use are evident, mainly with the safeguarding of young children. Web content filtering devices, whether hardware or software, are essential for restricting access to undesirable web material. Examples of inappropriate content include adult websites, malware-infected sites, and sites that may disturb workers or pupils.
Nonetheless, while the advantages to the organization may not be readily apparent, they are far more abundant. Significant hazards to any firm include hacking, phishing, viruses, and malware. Phishing occurs when cybercriminals illicitly acquire sensitive information via deceit, such as misleading workers into accessing fraudulent websites to get their login credentials. The loss or corruption of sensitive data, including login passwords, personal information, financial records, and legal documents, may be catastrophic for any firm. Consequently, web-filtering methods are important. Web filtering offers several benefits for both individual users and enterprises.
- Increased Productivity: Social networking is seen as a productivity detriment since it is distracting, takes significant amounts of critical work time, and results in diminished output. Limiting access has been shown to significantly improve productivity. The workforce has no justification for viewing movies when they should be doing their duties. Alongside restricting access to distracting websites, it is essential to assess other potential risks, like downloading questionable files, reading dodgy communications, and engaging with unverified connections.
- Malware Protection: Malware represents a significant threat to the enterprise. Viruses and other hazards may penetrate a company's network via several avenues, which is a primary reason organizations want to restrict internet access. Web filters may identify malware and prevent access prior to the completion of any download.
- Efficacy of Network Bandwidth: Non-work-related internet use significantly depletes network bandwidth. Restricting access to certain sites enhances network bandwidth efficiency and facilitates faster connections.
- Safeguarding Kids: Numerous websites are unequivocally inappropriate for children and students. Websites containing violence, sexual content, or detrimental disinformation must be restricted to protect children from their adverse effects. Although some websites may seem innocuous, a more thorough examination may reveal that they may be distracting and diminish children's concentration on other important matters.
- Compliance: To adhere to industry-specific regulations, such as the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which applies to schools and libraries, web filtering solutions must be activated on networks.
Blocking Websites with Zenarmor
Zenarmor is one of the best next-generation firewalls that provides web filtering and application control. You may use Zenarmor to prevent malicious or inappropriate website traffic at no cost forever. It provides enterprise-level security even for free edition subscribers.
Zenarmor queries your web access requests in real-time and decides whether they should be blocked or not depending on the rules you specified. AI-based threat intelligence feature of Zenarmor safeguards your network against more than 300 million websites/domains and +60 web categories. Zenarmor's content-filtering features enable regulation of websites and topics like weapons, warez, drugs, and nudity. Additionally, you can block specific websites by manually adding them to the prohibited list. After installing Zenarmor on your BSD-based or Linux-based gateway and completing the initial configuration, you can configure the web filtering on your Zenarmor node by following these steps.
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Navigate to the Policies page on your Zenarmor node.
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Click on the policy name, such as Default, that you want to configure. This will open the policy configuration window at the right side of the page.
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Navigate to the Web Controls tab on the policy configuration page.
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Click on the Category Based Controls pane. This will display the available web profiles and web categories.
Figure 1. Category-Based Web Controls
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Select the web profile that meets your needs, such as Moderate Control or High Control, from the Profile drop-down menu.
Figure 2. Selecting Web Profile
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Click Apply Changes to activate settings. This will automatically block the related websites' traffic.
tipEnabling web security controls on your network and blocking specific web categories may not be enough to prevent clients from accessing certain websites, such as YouTube. In addition to blocking the related web category, it is advisable to block related application categories or individual applications as well. For instance, to effectively block YouTube videos, consider also blocking the Media Streaming application category and the Quic UDP Connection application.
Blocking Individual Websites with Zenarmor Blacklist Exclusion
You may need to prevent accessing specific websites while allowing access to the related web category. Moreover, sometimes a website domain may be categorized incorrectly and needs to be blocked. In such cases, Zenarmor allows you to define an Exclusion. The Exclusions feature enables you to designate a domain as a blacklist or whitelist on an individual basis in the event that its category is incorrectly identified.
You may easily block a website individually and identify it as a Blacklist by following the next steps.
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Navigate to the Policies page on your Zenarmor node.
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Click on the policy name, such as Default, that you want to configure. This will open the policy configuration window at the right side of the page.
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Navigate to the Exclusions tab on the policy configuration page.
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Enter an IP address, hostname, or domain that matches the website you want to block.
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Select Blacklist for the type of Exclusions.
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You may fill in the Description field optionally.
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You may enable the Global option if you want to define the exclusion to be applied for all policies on the node.
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Click on the +Add exclusion button. This will add the domain to the blacklist.
Figure 3. Adding Blacklist Exclusion
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Click Apply Changes to activate settings. This will automatically block websites' traffic.
Blocking Websites via Live Session Explorer
While you are examining the network traffic via Zenarmor Live Sessions Explorer to see what is going on your network, you may notice a session that needs to be blocked. To quickly block a website connection, you may follow these steps.
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Navigate to the Live Sessions > TLS page on your Zenarmor node.
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You may click Filter button at the top of the page to find the sessions that belong to a website that need to be blocked. This will open a dialog box to enter a filter.
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Click on the first drop-down menu to add a filter by selecting the reporting metric, such as Destination Hostname.
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Select the operator in the second drop-down menu, such as Contains.
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Type a value that you want to be filtered for the report in to the Value field.
Figure 4. Adding Filter to Live Sessions
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You may click Add more toggle bar if you want to add multiple filters.
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Click Add button to activate filtering settings.
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Click Close after adding all filters to close the window. Then, filter is automatically applied to the Live Sessions.
Figure 5. TLS Live Sessions for a domain
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Click Block button in the Actions column. This will open a dialog box.
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Verify that the hostname is correct. Generally, you need to block the root domain or base domain instead of a subdomain to prevent accessing a website entirely. Zenarmor paid subscribers may select Block Web Category option as well to block entire web category.
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Click Block button.
Figure 6. Blocking Hostname via Live Sessions
Testing and Viewing Blocked Web Traffic
Advanced reporting capabilities of Zenarmor allow you to view network traffic sessions in real time via Live Sessions Explorer. You may follow the next steps to view web surfing and blocked website traffic.
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Navigate to the Reports page on your Zenarmor node.
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Click on the TLS tab to see HTTPS session charts.
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Go to Web Categories chart to view the top web categories visited on your networks.
Figure 7. Viewing TLS Reports
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Click on the Blocks tab to see blocked session charts.
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Go to Top Blocks chart.
Figure 8. Viewing Top Blocks Chart
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You may see Warez Site Access sessions.
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Hover your mouse over the Warez Site Access on the Top Blocks chart.
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Click Filter button. This will automatically apply the filter to the charts.
Figure 9. Applying Filter on Top Blocks Chart
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You may view the reports for the blocked warez site traffic.
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Navigate to the Live Sessions > Blocks to view the traffic details.
Figure 10. Viewing Blocks Live Sessions
tipSessions belonging to websites individually blocked through Exclusions have the Blacklisted tag in their Block message and Block Signature fields, as shown below.
Figure 11. Viewing Blacklisted Live Sessions
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Click on the magnifying glass icon to view the session details.
Figure 12. Viewing Live Sessions Details
Which Web Categories are Blocked with Moderate Control Web Profile?
Moderate Control web profile is available for all Zenarmor editions, including Free Edition, and allows you to block the following dangerous or high-risk web categories:
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Adult
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Advertisements
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Hate/Violence/Illegal
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Illegal Drugs
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Pornography
Figure 13. Moderate Control Web Profile
Which Web Categories are Blocked with High Control Web Profile?
High Control web profile is available for all Zenarmor editions, including Free Edition, and allows you to block the following web categories:
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Adult
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Advertisements
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Alcohol and Tobacco
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Blogs
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Chats
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Dating
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Forums
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Gambling
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Games
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Hate/Violence/Illegal
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Illegal Drugs
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Job Search
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Online Storage
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Online Video
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Pornography
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Social Networks
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Software Downloads
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Swimsuits and Underwear
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Warez
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Weapons and Military
Figure 14. High Control Web Profile
High Control web profile should be used with caution and may be suitable for very restrictive networks, such as K-12 school or home networks that require parental control.
Which Web Categories are Blocked with Custom Web Profile?
Zenarmor's paid editions offer a powerful, customizable web control profile. With a Zenarmor subscription, you are empowered to create your own web profile without being restricted to predefined options like High Control or Moderate Control. Take full control by selecting as many web categories as necessary to block with the Custom web profile.
Zenarmor subscribers can benefit from blocking web categories not available in the High or Moderate profiles for the Zenarmor Free Edition. These web categories are listed below.
- Arts and Culture
- Business Services
- Clothing and Fashion
- Content Delivery Networks
- Cult and Occult
- DNS over HTTPS
- DNS over TLS
- Education
- Empty Sites
- Entertainment
- Financial Services
- Generative AI
- Government and Organization
- Health
- Home and Garden
- Infrastructure Services
- Kids
- Low-THC Cannabis Products
- Music
- News
- Proxy
- Real Estate
- Reference
- Religion
- Search Engines
- Self Harm
- Shareware and Freeware
- Shopping
- Society
- Sports
- Technology and Computer
- Uncategorized
- Vacation and Travel
- Vehicles
- Webmails