Configuring Security Policies

A security policy is a set of rules and actions that you define to balance access and constraints, so you can mitigate malicious attacks and provide security for your networks.

Infoblox  Threat Defense provides a default global policy that gives you a head start in protecting your networks. You can review the default global policy, and decide whether you want to add or remove some of the rules based on your business requirements.

In addition to the default global policy, you can add new security policies from scratch or clone an existing policy to complement the default policy. When you create a new security policy, you must first define a network scope to which you add external networks, user groups, DNS forwarding proxies, DDI IPAM, and Endpoint groups. Infoblox Threat Defense applies the security policy to all the entities that you include in the network scope. After you define the network scope, you can add policy rules and specify actions and their precedence order. For more information, see Security Policy Precedence.

To quickly create a new security policy, you can clone an existing one and modify certain elements before you save the new configuration.

The Security Policies page displays the following information for each security policy you have configured by default:

1. PRECEDENCE: Infoblox Threat Defense enforces security policies in an ascending precedence order in which the policy rule with the lowest precedence order has the highest priority in the evaluation process. The precedence order for executing rules in a security policy, from highest to lowest order of precedence, is as follows:
   1. Custom Lists
   2. Feeds
   3. Threat intelligence
   4. Category Filters
   5. Default
2. NAME: The policy name.
3. DEFAULT ACTION: The default action currently configured for the entities that are not included in the network scope.
4. DESCRIPTION: The policy description.

You can also click the expandable menu icon to choose the following columns for display:

• EXTERNAL NETWORKS: The total number of external networks included in the network scope for this policy. 
• INFOBLOX  ENDPOINT GROUPS: The total number of endpoint groups included in the network scope for this policy.
• IPAM: The number of IPAM objects associated with the security 
• IPAM HOSTS: The number of IPAM Hosts associated with the security policy. 
• TAGS: Any tags associated with the security policy. 
• METADATA: Any metadata associated with the security policy.
• USER GROUPS: The total number of user groups included in the network scope for this policy.
• LISTS: The total number of custom lists configured for the security policy.
• CATEGORY FILTERS: The total number of category filters configured for the security policy.
• APPLICATION FILTERS: The total number of application filters configured for the security policy.
• BYPASS CODES: The number of bypass codes associated with a security policy. 
• GEOLOCATION: The geolocation state for the policy. Geolocation can be enabled or disabled. For more information about geolocation support, see Geolocation Support on a Per-Policy Basis.
• SAFE SEARCH: This indicates whether safe search is enabled or disabled for the security policy. For more information about safe search enforcement, see Safe Search Enforcement.
• DNS FORWARDING PROXIES: The total number of DNS forwarding proxies included in the network scope for this policy.
• DOH PER POLICY: DNS over HTTPs (DoH) is an encrypted protocol for DNS resolution. DoH per Policy can be enabled or disabled. Infoblox  Threat Defense can terminate DoH connections and associate custom DoH FQDNs with specific customer policies. This allows customers to securely redirect their DNS traffic to Infoblox Threat Defense without a client and integrate our solution with third-party solutions. For information on how to use an agentless client over DoH, see Implementing the Client over DoH.
• BLOCK DNS REBIND ATTACK (BLOCK DRA): In a DNS rebinding attack, the attacker first gains control of a malicious DNS server. For information, see Blocking DNS Rebind Attacks.
• POLICY CHECK: Reports information on the health of the policy (Good, Warning) and provides security policy optimization information, actionable feedback on policies possessing a warning status as reported by SOC Insights, and links to the Best Practices for Configuring Security Policies documentation page and the policy rules in effect for this policy within Infoblox Portal to assist in optimizing and fixing a sub-optimized security policy.    
  
  Image: The Security Policy window indicating a need for the security policy to be further optimized. 
  
  

You can also view more information about each security policy in the right panel. When you expand Network Scope, Policy Rules, and Bypass Codes, you can see the total number of each entities within the respective category. When you click the number next to each entity, the system takes you to the Summary page of the security policy. On the Summary page, you can find more information about the specific entity or navigate to other sections to view or modify certain information about the security policy.

You can also perform the following in this tab:

• Click Create Security Policy to create a new security policy.
• Click the expandable menu icon > Edit to modify the respective security policy information. You can also choose the respective security policy and click the Edit button to do so.
• Click the expandable menu icon > Edit Precedence to set the precedence order for the security policy. Click the checkbox icon to save the changes, or click the close icon to discard the changes. For more information, see Security Policy Precedence.
• Choose a security policy and click Clone to create a new policy by cloning the selected one.  

• Click the expandable menu icon > Remove to delete a security policy. You can also choose the respective security policy and click Remove.

• Choose a security policy to view additional details in the right panel. You can collapse the right panel by clicking the information icon. 

• Enter the value that you want to search in the Search text box. The Infoblox Portal displays the list of records that match the keyword in the text box.
• Click the expandable menu icon to choose the columns you want to display or use the arrow keys to reorder the columns.

For more information about how to create security policies, see the following:

• Best Practices for Configuring Security Policies
• Creating Security Policies
• Adding Policy Rules and Setting Precedence
• Authentication (Quarantine) Policy for Non-authenticated Users and Non-authenticated Devices
• Adding Bypass Codes to a Security Policy
• Editing Security Policies
• Cloning Security Policies
• Removing Security Policies
• Blocking DNS Rebind Attacks
• About Rule Actions
• Security Policy Precedence
• Safe Search Enforcement
• Geolocation Support on a Per-Policy Basis
• Viewing Feeds and Threat Insight Associated with a Security Policy
• New Feed Releases and Deprecations for Infoblox Threat Defense Cloud and NIOS (May 2024)
• Implementing Clients over DoH

For more information about how to use Local Internet DNS Breakout (local on-prem resolution) with Infoblox Threat Defense and Universal DNS, see the following:

• Using Local On-prem Resolution.