Security Policy Rules

Table of Contents

Security Policy Rules

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Security policy protects network assets from threats and disruptions and helps to optimally allocate network resources for enhancing productivity and efficiency in business processes. Individual Security rules determine whether to block or allow a session based on traffic attributes, such as the source and destination security zone, the source and destination IP address, the application, the user, and the service.

All traffic passing through your environment is matched against a session and each session is matched against a Security rule. When a session match occurs, the Security rule is applied to bidirectional traffic in that session (client to server and server to client). For traffic that doesn’t match any defined rules, the default rules apply. The default rules—displayed at the bottom of the security rulebase—are predefined to allow all intrazone traffic (within a zone) and deny all interzone traffic (between zones). Although these rules are part of the predefined configuration and are read-only by default, you can override them and change a limited number of settings, including the tags, action (allow or block), log settings, and security profiles.

Security rules are evaluated left to right and from top to bottom. A packet is matched against the first rule that meets the defined criteria and, after a match is triggered, subsequent rules are not evaluated. Therefore, the more specific rules must precede more generic ones in order to enforce the best match criteria. Traffic that matches a rule generates a log entry at the end of the session in the traffic log if you enable logging for that rule. The logging options are configurable for each rule and can, for example, be configured to log at the start of a session instead of, or in addition to, logging at the end of a session.

A network configuration can have a maximum of 10,000 security rules.

Components of a Security Rule

The Security rule permits a combination of the required and optional fields as detailed in the following table.

Required/Optional	Field	Description
Required	Name	A label (up to 63 characters) that identifies the rule.
	Action	Specifies an Allow or Deny action for the traffic based on the criteria you define in the rule. When you configure your environment to deny traffic, it either resets the connection or silently drops packets. To provide a better user experience, you can configure granular options to deny traffic instead of silently dropping packets, which can cause some applications to break and appear unresponsive to the user. For more details, see Security Rule Actions.
	UUID`(for Panorama and PAN-OS only)`	The Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) is a distinct 32-character string that permanently identifies rules so that you can track a rule regardless of any changes to it, such as the name.
	Rule Type	Specifies whether the rule applies to traffic within a zone, between zones, or both: universal (default)—Applies the rule to all matching interzone and intrazone traffic in the specified source and destination zones. For example, if you create a universal rule with source zones A and B and destination zones A and B, the rule would apply to all traffic within zone A, all traffic within zone B, and all traffic from zone A to zone B and all traffic from zone B to zone A. intrazone—Applies the rule to all matching traffic within the specified source zones (you cannot specify a destination zone for intrazone rules). For example, if you set the source zone to A and B, the rule would apply to all traffic within zone A and all traffic within zone B, but not to traffic between zones A and B. interzone—Applies the rule to all matching traffic between the specified source and destination zones. For example, if you set the source zone to A, B, and C and the destination zone to A and B, the rule would apply to traffic from zone A to zone B, from zone B to zone A, from zone C to zone A, and from zone C to zone B, but not traffic within zones A, B, or C.
	Source Zone	The zone from which the traffic originates.
	Destination Zone	The zone at which the traffic terminates. If you use NAT, make sure to always reference the post-NAT zone.
	Application	The application that you wish to control. The App-ID is used, the traffic classification technology, to identify traffic on your network. App-ID provides application control and visibility in creating security rules that block unknown applications, while enabling, inspecting, and shaping those that are allowed.

Optional	Tag	A keyword or phrase that allows you to filter security rules. This is handy when you have defined many rules and wish to then review those that are tagged with a keyword such as IT-sanctioned applications or High-risk applications.
	Description	A text field, up to 1,024 characters, used to describe the rule.
	Source Address	Define host IP addresses, subnets, address objects (of type IP netmask, IP range, FQDN, or IP wildcard mask), address groups, or country-based enforcement. If you use NAT, make sure to always refer to the original IP addresses in the packet (i.e. the pre-NAT IP address).
	Destination Address	The location or destination for the packet. Define IP addresses, subnets, address objects (of type IP netmask, IP range, FQDN, or IP wildcard mask), address groups, or country-based enforcement. If you use NAT, make sure to always refer to the original IP addresses in the packet (i.e. the pre-NAT IP address).
	User	The user or group of users for whom the policy applies. You must have User-ID enabled on the zone. To enable User-ID, see User-ID Overview.
	URL Category	Using the URL Category as match criteria allows you to customize security profiles (Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, Vulnerability, File-Blocking, Data Filtering, and DoS) on a per-URL-category basis. For example, you can prevent.exe file download/upload for URL categories that represent higher risk while allowing them for other categories. This functionality also allows you to attach schedules to specific URL categories (allow social-media websites during lunch & after-hours), mark certain URL categories with QoS (financial, medical, and business), and select different log forwarding profiles on a per-URL-category-basis. Although you can manually configure URL categories to take advantage of the dynamic URL categorization updates available, you must purchase a URL filtering license. To block or allow traffic based on URL category, you must apply a URL Filtering profile to the security rules. Define the URL Category as Any and attach a URL Filtering profile to the Security policy.
	Service	Allows you to select a Layer 4 (TCP or UDP) port for the application. You can choose any, specify a port, or use application-default to permit use of the standards-based port for the application. For example, for applications with well-known port numbers such as DNS, the application-default option will match against DNS traffic only on TCP port 53. You can also add a custom application and define the ports that the application can use. For inbound allow rules (for example, from untrust to trust), using application-default prevents applications from running on unusual ports and protocols. Application-default is the default option; while the checks are still performed for all applications on all ports, with this configuration, applications are only allowed on their standard ports/protocols.
	Security Profiles	Provide additional protection from threats, vulnerabilities, and data leaks. Security profiles are evaluated only for rules that have an allow action.
	HIP Profile (`for GlobalProtect`)	Allows you to identify clients with Host Information Profile (HIP) and then enforce access privileges.
	Options	Allow you to define logging for the session, log forwarding settings, change Quality of Service (QoS) markings for packets that match the rule, and schedule when (day and time) the security rule should be in effect.

Security Rule Actions

For traffic that matches the attributes defined in a Security policy, you can apply the following actions:

Action	Description
Allow (default)	Allows the traffic.
Deny	Blocks traffic and enforces the default Deny Action defined for the application that is being denied.
Drop	Silently drops the traffic; for an application, it overrides the default deny action. A TCP reset isn't sent to the host/application. For Layer 3 interfaces, to optionally send an ICMP unreachable response to the client, set Action: Drop and enable the Send ICMP Unreachable check box. When enabled, the ICMP code is sent for communication with the destination is administratively prohibited—ICMPv4: Type 3, Code 13; ICMPv6: Type 1, Code 1.
Reset client	Sends a TCP reset to the client-side device.
Reset server	Sends a TCP reset to the server-side device.
Reset both	Sends a TCP reset to both the client-side and server-side devices.
A reset is sent only after a session is formed. If the session is blocked before a 3-way handshake is completed, the reset won't be sent. For a TCP session with a reset action, an ICMP Unreachable response isn't sent. For a UDP session with a drop or reset action, if the ICMP Unreachable check box is selected, an ICMP message to the client is sent.

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