DoS Protection

Denial of Service (DoS) policies are primarily used to apply DoS anomaly checks to network traffic based on the FortiGate interface it is entering as well as the source and destination addresses. DoS checks are a traffic anomaly detection feature to identify network traffic that does not fit known or common traffic patterns and behavior. A common example of anomalous traffic is the denial of service attack. A denial of service occurs when an attacking system starts an abnormally large number of sessions with a target system. The large number of sessions slows down or disables the target system, so that legitimate users can no longer use it.

DoS policies are similar to firewall policies except that instead of defining the way traffic is allowed to flow, they keep track of certain traffic patterns and attributes and will stop traffic displaying those attributes. Further, DoS policies affect only incoming traffic on a single interface. You can further limit a DoS policy by source address, destination address, and service.

DoS configurations have been changed a couple of times in the past. In FortiOS 4.0, DoS protection is moved to the interface policy, so when it is enabled, it is the first thing checked when a packet enters FortiGate. Because of this early detection, DoS policies are a very efficient defence that uses few resources. Denial of service attacks, for example, are detected and its packets dropped before requiring security policy look-ups, antivirus scans, and other protective but resource-intensive operations.

A DoS policy examines network traffic arriving at an interface for anomalous patterns usually indicating an attack. This does not mean that all anomalies experience by the firewall are the result of an intentional attack.

Because an improperly configured DoS anomaly check can interfere with network traffic, no DoS checks are preconfigured on a factory default FortiGate unit. You must create your own before they will take effect. Thresholds for newly created sensors are preset with recommended values that you can adjust to meet the needs of your network.

To create a Denial of Service policy determine if it needs to be an IPv4 or IPv6 policy, then goto:

Policy & Objects > Policy > DoS Policy for IPv4.

Policy & Objects > Policy > IPv6 DoS Policy for IPv6.

The Enable SSH Deep Scan feature is enabled by default when creating a new SSL/SSH Inspection profile. There are situations were this feature can cause issues so be sure that you would like it enabled before applying it.