The Firewall Governance committee, the group of campus information technology representatives charged with oversight of the University’s firewall rules, has decided to enact a block of inbound HTTP and HTTPS traffic starting on January 24, 2023.
Based on analysis, PennNet currently has about 4,600 unique web servers utilizing the HTTP (on any port) or HTTPS (on port 443) protocols. About half of these web servers are printers, video conferencing units, virtual desktops, voice over IP (VoIP), network attached storage (NAS), and other similar devices that should not require access from off campus. Since they are currently open to inbound traffic, they present an avenue of attack and risk to campus.
The purpose of this block of inbound HTTP and HTTPS traffic is to close this avenue of attack except for legitimate network traffic. Legitimate traffic will be identified by school and center IT teams. For any servers that need to be accessible from off campus, here is the form to register them so they are not subject to the block:
https://probe.security.isc.upenn.edu/pennonly/submitweb.html(accessible only from PennNet)
NOTE: the form is for use by Security Liaisons, who are the central points of coordination for this on behalf of their Schools and Centers. If you do not know who your Security Liaison is, please contact the Office of Information Security at security@upenn.edu.