News
IIS Security Tool Screens Incoming Traffic
- By Scott Bekker
- 09/13/2001
Microsoft Corp. this week gave Web server administrators a tool that lets them act as a border guard -- stopping suspicious requests before they damage IIS boxes.
The protection comes in the form of a tool called URLScan. The tool screens all incoming requests to the Web server and filters them based on rules set by the administrator.
Using the tool, IIS administrators may be able to turn away many of the common types of denial-of-service and other attacks that rely on attackers' flooding a server with malformed requests.
The tool comes with a default set of rules. Administrators can configure the rules themselves to customize the tool for their own needs. However, Microsoft does warn that the tool should only be used by experienced Web administrators. "It is possible to configure the filters in a way that would interfere with normal Web site operation," Microsoft notes.
The tool works with IIS versions 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1 on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The 162 KB executable can be downloaded here.
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.