Configure URL filtering with category and reputation

This task enables URL filtering with category and reputation to protect your network from malicious websites and to control user access to specific website categories.

URL filtering with category and reputation provides comprehensive web security by evaluating websites based on their content categories and reputation scores. This feature helps prevent access to malicious sites while allowing administrators to control access to specific types of content.

Before you begin

Assign the URL Filtering license to each managed device that will filter URLs.

Follow these steps to configure URL filtering with category and reputation:

Procedure

Step 1	Review and understand limitations AND guidelines. Best practices for URL filtering
Step 2	Enable the URL Filtering feature. Enable URL filtering using category and reputation
Step 3	Configure rules to filter URLs by category and reputation. Configure URL conditions For the best protection against malicious sites, you must block sites by reputation and block URLs in all threat categories. (Optional) Supplement or selectively override category and reputation-based URL filtering
Step 4	(Optional) Allow users to bypass a website block by clicking through a warning page. This step is optional. HTTP response pages
Step 5	Order your rules so that traffic hits the key rules first. URL rule order
Step 6	(Optional) Modify advanced options related to URL filtering. This step is optional. Generally, use the defaults unless you have a specific reason to change them. For information about advanced options, refer to Advanced Settings for Access Control. Maximum URL characters to store in connection events Allow an Interactive Block to bypass blocking for (seconds) Retry URL cache miss lookup Enable reputation enforcement on DNS traffic
Step 7	Deploy your changes. Deploy configuration changes
Step 8	Ensure that your system receives future URL data updates as expected. Configure URL filtering health monitors
Step 9	Enable other features to protect your network from malicious sites. See Security Intelligence.