Denial-of-Service and Brute Force Attacks Thwarted by Free Microsoft Software

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 18 Feb 2009

Microsoft is taking the issue of DoS (denial-of-service) and brute force attacks seriously and consequently has made available a new tool that would further enhance the security level of any network. The tool is called Dynamic IP Restrictions, it is offered free of charge to whomever wants to use it, and it is meant to work perfectly with Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0. The only downside is the Beta label attached to this security tool.

“The IIS team has released the Dynamic IP Restrictions Extension for IIS 7.0 - Beta. The Dynamic IP Restrictions Extension provides IT Professionals and Hosters a configurable module that helps mitigate or block Denial of Service Attacks or cracking of passwords through Brute-force by temporarily blocking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of HTTP clients who follow a pattern that could be conducive to one of such attacks. This module can be configured such that the analysis and blocking could be done at the Web Server or the Web Site level,” comments Program Manager, Ruslan Yakushev.

There are a total of 6 main features one can benefit from with Dynamic IP Restrictions Extension for IIS 7.0 Beta:
- IP addresses are blocked according to the number of concurrent requests. Whenever numerous concurrent requests are detected, the IP address where they originate is blocked temporarily.
- IP addresses are blocked according to the number of requests sent over a certain period of time.
- An IP address that has been blocked can get specific 403 or 404 error codes. It is also possible to drop the connection and not return any status code whatsoever.
- A W3C formatted file will log all denied requests.
- With IIS Manager or IIS RSCA API’s one can view a detailed list of all the IP addresses that have been blocked.
- Full support for IPv6 addresses.


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