Smoothwall cloud filter extension doesn't block executable files as downloads

[_techie_]

Hi,

 

Not sure if I'm missing something, but our cloud filter doesn't seem to be working quite as expected, despite our smoothwall appliance working as expected inside school.

I noticed a yesterday, that an interesting student had managed to download opera and installed it under his user profile, so was bypassing the filter, as the extension wasn't force installed.

Having checked our web filter policies, I noticed that executable files were blocked. Testing on our RDS system, which doesn't use the extension, this worked as expected, and trying to download an executable file (I was trying putty.exe), which was blocked successfully.

 

We have the cloud extension on both chromebooks and windows devices, and you can download exe files on both...

Am I missing something? Or does the cloud filter extension not block executable files from being downloaded?

 

Cheers

Mark

[tom_newton]

We're not able to get mime types from the extension so the filtering isn't quite as effective at exes etc.

I would strongly suggest using applocker to keep students from using unauthorised browsers.