Students bypassing webfilters

[NetworkSeb]

We noticed that students have been using a website to bypass our Paloalto web filtering.

The website is:https://webrecorder.io/

 

We are a bit miffed how the Paloalto missed this but have informed Paloaltonetworks of the mis-categorisation of that website so hopefully it will be re-categorised as high risk and as a kind of proxy.

 

Just thought I'd make others aware incase it isn't being caught by their filtering systems too.

 

We are currently checking to see if there are other 'web archives' that are allowing students to bypass the filters.

 

Got to say it is scary seeing what the students have been using it for!

Edited January 21, 2020 by NetworkSeb

[mikeprice]

If you have any actual evidence of who did what it mighthelp is these kids were given a stern talking to by SMT at the very least

 

I had a similar problem years ago where a group tried the old "if we can get to it we are allowed on it" concept

had to stamped on quite firmly before the rest of the school tried it and it became 'known'

[NetworkSeb]

Oh for sure we have the names, dates/times and what they have been looking at.

All being delt with in terms of having the talks with the Students and informing their parents/carers of what they have been up to and working out suitable punishments.

 

We expect the reply from the parents/carers and students to be that we should be blocking such content in school etc but we can show them the IT usage agreement forms they signed stating that although we do our best to block and prevent 'bad websites' the filters cannot possibly catch them all (no-one can!) its just a best effort thing really by all Schools and the web filtering systems they use .

You can bet your bottom dollar that any parents/carers that have some sort of 'net nanny' type software on their kids devices do not realise that it can be bypassed so easily.

 

Thankfully its only a small handfull of students that had been taking advantage of the 'hole'. I'm sure they will keep trying to access websites they shouldn't be so lets see what they find next! :-)

[chazzy2501]

I've been toying with the idea of restricting the TLD list. only allow (.com/.uk/.gov/.org.uk)

[CHiLL]

I've been toying with the idea of restricting the TLD list. only allow (.com/.uk/.gov/.org.uk)

I wouldn't, that will most likely break a lot of other sites. For example, we blocked the .io TLD and it broke a few educational sites we're subscribed to because those sites have some content hosted on a .io domain.

[Opendium_Steve]

I've been toying with the idea of restricting the TLD list. only allow (.com/.uk/.gov/.org.uk)

I think you'll break a lot of legitimate stuff I'm afraid - websites pull in resources from all over the place these days. Besides, I'm not sure there's any shortage of "bad" sites ending in .uk

[Kelechi93]

We noticed that students have been using a website to bypass our Paloalto web filtering.

The website is:https://webrecorder.io/

 

We are a bit miffed how the Paloalto missed this but have informed Paloaltonetworks of the mis-categorisation of that website so hopefully it will be re-categorised as high risk and as a kind of proxy.

 

Just thought I'd make others aware incase it isn't being caught by their filtering systems too.

 

We are currently checking to see if there are other 'web archives' that are allowing students to bypass the filters.

 

Got to say it is scary seeing what the students have been using it for!

 

 

Good looking out, Just added it to my Sophos XG, the kids at my school may not be smart enough to figure out this website, but we've had one kid (a 10 year old at that) attempt to access the tor network so it's better to be safe than sorry.