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CONFIGURE URL FILTERING FOR SECURE EMAIL GATEWAY AND CLOUD GATEWAY

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Updated:July 19, 2022
Document ID:118775
Bias-Free Language


BIAS-FREE LANGUAGE

The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For
the purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that
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language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a
referenced third-party product. Learn more about how Cisco is using Inclusive
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CONTENTS

Introduction
Background Information
Prerequisites
Enable URL Filtering
Create URL Filtering Actions
Untrusted URL(s)
Unknown URL(s)
Questionable URL(s)
Neutral URL(s)
Message Tracking
Reporting Uncategorized and Misclassified URL(s)
Malicious URLs and Marketing Messages Are Not Caught by Anti-Spam or Outbreak
Filters
Appendix
Enable URL Filtering Support for Shortened URLs
Additional Information
Cisco Secure Email Gateway Documentation
Secure Email Cloud Gateway Documentation
Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager Documentation
Cisco Secure Product Documentation


INTRODUCTION

This document describes how to configure URL Filtering on Cisco Secure Email
Gateway and Cloud Gateway and best practices for URL Filtering use.


BACKGROUND INFORMATION

URL Filtering was first introduced with AsyncOS 11.1 for Email Security. This
release allowed the configuration of Cisco Secure Email to scan for URLs in
message attachments and perform configured actions on such messages. Message and
content filters use the URL Reputation and URL Category to check for URLs in
messages and attachments. For more details, see the "Using Message Filters to
Enforce Email Policies," "Content Filters," and "Protecting Against Untrusted or
Undesirable URLs" chapters in the User Guide or online help.

Control and protection against untrusted or undesirable links are incorporated
into the work queue for anti-spam, outbreak, content, and message filtering
processes. These controls:

 * Increase the effectiveness of protection from untrusted URLs in messages and
   attachments.
 * In addition, URL Filtering is incorporated into Outbreak Filters. This
   strengthened protection is applicable even if your organization already has a
   Cisco Web Security Appliance or similar protection from web-based threats
   because it blocks threats at the point of entry.
 * You can also use content or message filters to take action based on the
   Web-Based Reputation Score (WBRS) of URLs in messages. For example, you can
   rewrite URLs with a neutral or unknown reputation to redirect them to the
   Cisco Web Security Proxy for click-time evaluation of their safety.
 * Better identify spam
 * The appliance uses the reputation and category of links in messages and other
   spam-identification algorithms to help identify spam. For example, if a link
   in a message belongs to a marketing website, the message is more likely to be
   a marketing message.
 * Support enforcement of corporate acceptable use policies
 * The category of URLs (Adult Content or Illegal Activities, for example) can
   be used with content and message filters to enforce acceptable corporate use
   policies.
 * Allow you to identify users in your organization who most frequently clicked
   a URL in a message that has been rewritten for protection and links that have
   most commonly been clicked.

Note: In the AsyncOS 11.1 for Email Security release, URL Filtering introduced
support for shortened URLs. With the CLI command' websecurityadvancedconfig,'
the shortener services could be seen and configured. This configuration option
was updated in AsyncOS 13.5 for Email Security. After you upgrade to this
release, all shortened URLs are expanded. There is no option to disable the
expansion of shortened URLs. For this reason, Cisco recommends AsyncOS 13.5 for
Email Security or newer to provide the latest protections for URL defense.
Please see the "Protecting Against Malicious or Undesirable URLs" chapter in the
user guide or online help and the CLI Reference Guide for AsyncOS for Cisco
Email Security Appliance.

Note: For this document, AsyncOS 14.2 for Email Security is used for the
examples and screenshots provided.

Note: Cisco Secure Email also provides an in-depth URL Defense Guide at
docs.ces.cisco.com.


PREREQUISITES

When you configure URL Filtering on the Cisco Secure Email Gateway or Cloud
Gateway, you must also configure other features dependent upon your desired
functionality. Here are some typical features that are enabled alongside URL
Filtering:

 * For enhanced protection against spam, the Anti-Spam Scanning feature must be
   enabled globally per the applicable mail policy. Anti-Spam is considered
   either the Cisco IronPort Anti-Spam (IPAS) or the Cisco Intelligent
   Multi-Scan (IMS) feature.
 * For enhanced protection against malware, the Outbreak Filters or Virus
   Outbreak Filters (VOF) feature must be enabled globally per the applicable
   mail policy.
 * For actions based on URL Reputation or to enforce acceptable use policies
   with the use of message and content filters, VOF must be enabled globally.

     


ENABLE URL FILTERING

You must first enable the feature to implement URL Filtering on the Cisco Secure
Email Gateway or Cloud Gateway. URL Filtering can be enabled from GUI or CLI by
the administrator.

To enable URL Filtering, from GUI, navigate to Security Services > URL Filtering
and click Enable:



     

Next, click Enable URL Category and Reputation Filters. This example includes
best practices values for URL Lookup Timeout, Maximum Number of URLs scanned,
and enables the option to log URL(s):



Note: Ensure that you commit your changes to the configuration at this time.

     


CREATE URL FILTERING ACTIONS

When you enable URL Filtering alone, it does not take action against URLs within
messages or messages with attachments.

The URL(s) included in messages and attachments for incoming and outgoing mail
policies are evaluated. Any valid string for a URL is evaluated to include
strings with these components:

 * HTTP, HTTPS, or WWW
 * Domain or IP addresses
 * Port numbers preceded by a colon (:)
 * Uppercase or lowercase letters

     

Note: URL log entry is visible from mail_logs for most URLs. If the URL is not
logged in the mail_logs, please review Message Tracking for the Message ID
(MID). Message Tracking does include a tab for "URL Details."

     

When the system evaluates URLs to determine whether a message is a spam, if
necessary for load management, it prioritizes and screens inbound messages over
outbound messages.

You can perform actions on messages based on the URL reputation or the URL
category in the message body or messages with attachments.

For example, if you want to apply the Drop (Final Action) action to all messages
that include URLs in the Adult category, add a condition of type URL Category
with the Adult category selected.

If you do not specify a category, the action you choose is applied to all
messages.

The URL reputation score range for Trusted, Favorable, Neutral, Questionable,
and Untrusted are predefined and not editable. You can specify a Custom Range.
Use "Unknown" for URLs for which a reputation score has yet to be determined.

To quickly scan URLs and take action, you can create a content filter so that if
the message has a valid URL, then the action is applied. From the GUI,
navigate Mail Policies > Incoming Content Filters > Add Filter.

     

Actions associated with URLs are as follows:

 * Defang URL
   * The URL is modified to make it unclickable, but the message recipient can
     still read the intended URL. (Extra characters are inserted into the
     original URL.)
 * Redirect to Cisco Security Proxy
   * The URL is rewritten when clicked to pass through the Cisco Security Proxy
     for additional verification. Based on the Cisco Security Proxy verdict, the
     site could be inaccessible to the user.
 * Replace URL with a text message
   * With this option, an administrator can rewrite the URL within the message
     and send it externally for Remote Browser Isolation.

     


UNTRUSTED URL(S)

Untrusted: URL behavior that is exceptionally bad, malicious, or undesirable.
This is the safest recommended blocklist threshold; however, there can be
messages that are not blocked because the URLs therein have a lower threat
level. Prioritizes delivery over security.

Recommended action: Block. (An administrator can quarantine or drop the message
entirely.)

This example provides context for a content filter for URL Filtering to detect
Untrusted URLs:



     

With this content filter in place, Cisco Secure Email scans for a URL with an
Untrusted reputation (-10.00 to -6.00) and places the message into a quarantine,
URL_UNTRUSTED. Here is an example from the mail_logs:

Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: ICID 5 ACCEPT SG MY_TRUSTED_HOSTS match 127.0.0.1 SBRS None country United States
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: ICID 5 TLS success protocol TLSv1.2 cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: Start MID 3 ICID 5
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 ICID 5 From: <test@test.com>
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 SDR: Domains for which SDR is requested: reverse DNS host: example.com, helo: ip-127-0-0-1.internal, env-from: test.com, header-from: Not Present, reply-to: Not Present
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 SDR: Consolidated Sender Threat Level: Neutral, Threat Category: N/A, Suspected Domain(s) : N/A (other reasons for verdict). Sender Maturity: 30 days (or greater) for domain: test.com
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 ICID 5 RID 0 To: <end_user>
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 Message-ID '<20220705145935.1835303@ip-127-0-0-1.internal>'
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 Subject "test is sent you a URL => 15504c0618"
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 SDR: Domains for which SDR is requested: reverse DNS host:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, helo:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, env-from: test.com, header-from: test.com, reply-to: Not Present
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 SDR: Consolidated Sender Threat Level: Neutral, Threat Category: N/A, Suspected Domain(s) : N/A (other reasons for verdict). Sender Maturity: 30 days (or greater) for domain: test.com
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 SDR: Tracker Header : 62c45245_jTikQ2lV2NYfmrGzMwQMBd68fxqFFueNmElwb5kQOt89QH1tn2s+wyqFO0Bg6qJenrPTndlyp+zb0xjKxrK3Cw==
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 ready 3123 bytes from <test@test.com>
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 matched all recipients for per-recipient policy DEFAULT in the inbound table
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: ICID 5 close
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 URL https://www.ihaveabadreputation.com/ has reputation -9.5 matched Condition: URL Reputation Rule
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: MID 3 quarantined to "Policy" (content filter:URL_QUARANTINE_UNTRUSTED)
Tue Jul 5 15:01:25 2022 Info: Message finished MID 3 done

     

The URL ihaveabadreputation.com is considered UNTRUSTED and scored at a -9.5.
URL Filtering detected the Untrusted URL and quarantined it to URL_UNTRUSTED.

The previous example from mail_logs provides an example if ONLY the content
filter for URL Filtering is enabled for the incoming mail policy. If the same
mail policy has additional services enabled, such as Anti-Spam, the other
services indicate if the URL has been detected from THOSE services and their
rules. In the same URL example, Cisco Anti-Spam Engine (CASE) is enabled for the
incoming mail policy, and the message body is scanned and determined to be spam
positive. This is indicated first in the mail_logs since Anti-Spam is the first
service in the mail processing pipeline. Content Filters come later in the mail
processing pipeline:

Tue Jul 5 15:19:48 2022 Info: ICID 6 ACCEPT SG MY_TRUSTED_HOSTS match 127.0.0.1 SBRS None country United States
Tue Jul 5 15:19:48 2022 Info: ICID 6 TLS success protocol TLSv1.2 cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
Tue Jul 5 15:19:48 2022 Info: Start MID 4 ICID 6
Tue Jul 5 15:19:48 2022 Info: MID 4 ICID 6 From: <test@test.com>
Tue Jul 5 15:19:48 2022 Info: MID 4 SDR: Domains for which SDR is requested: reverse DNS host:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, helo:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, env-from: test.com, header-from: Not Present, reply-to: Not Present
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 SDR: Consolidated Sender Threat Level: Neutral, Threat Category: N/A, Suspected Domain(s) : N/A (other reasons for verdict). Sender Maturity: 30 days (or greater) for domain: test.com
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 ICID 6 RID 0 To: <end_user>
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 Message-ID '<20220705151759.1841272@ip-127-0-0-1.internal>'
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 Subject "test is sent you a URL => 646aca13b8"
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 SDR: Domains for which SDR is requested: reverse DNS host:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, helo:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, env-from: test.com, header-from: test.com, reply-to: Not Present
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 SDR: Consolidated Sender Threat Level: Neutral, Threat Category: N/A, Suspected Domain(s) : N/A (other reasons for verdict). Sender Maturity: 30 days (or greater) for domain: test.com
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 SDR: Tracker Header : 62c45695_mqwplhpxGDqtgUp/XTLGFKD60hwNKKsghUKAMFOYVv9l32gncZX7879qf3FGzWfP1mc6ZH3iLMpcKwCBJXhmIg==
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 ready 3157 bytes from <test@test.com>
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 matched all recipients for per-recipient policy DEFAULT in the inbound table
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: ICID 6 close
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 interim verdict using engine: CASE spam positive
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 using engine: CASE spam positive
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: ISQ: Tagging MID 4 for quarantine
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 URL https://www.ihaveabadreputation.com/ has reputation -9.5 matched Condition: URL Reputation Rule
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: MID 4 quarantined to "URL_UNTRUSTED" (content filter:URL_QUARANTINE_UNTRUSTED)
Tue Jul 5 15:19:49 2022 Info: Message finished MID 4 done

     

There are times when CASE and IPAS rules contain rules, reputation, or
scores that match against a specific sender, domain, or message contents to
detect URL threats alone. In this example, ihaveabadreputation.com was seen,
tagged for the Spam Quarantine (ISQ), and the URL_UNTRUSTED quarantine by the
URL_QUARANTINE_UNTRUSTED content filter. The message goes into the URL_UNTRUSTED
quarantine first. When the message is released from that quarantine by an
administrator or the time limit/configuration criteria of the URL_UNTRUSTED
quarantine have been met, the message is next moved into the ISQ.

Based on administrator preferences, additional conditions and actions can be
configured for the content filter.

     


UNKNOWN URL(S)

Unknown: Not previously evaluated or does not display features to assert a
threat-level verdict. The URL Reputation Service does not have enough data to
establish a reputation. This verdict is not suitable for actions in a URL
Reputation policy directly.

Recommended action: Scan with subsequent engines to check for other potentially
malicious content.

Unknown URL(s) or "no reputation" can be URLs that contain new domains or URL(s)
that have seen little to no traffic and cannot have an evaluated reputation and
threat level verdict. These can turn in Untrusted as more information is
obtained for their domain and origination. For such URL(s), Cisco recommends a
content filter to log or one that includes the detection of the Unknown URL. As
of with AsyncOS 14.2, Unknown URL(s) are sent to the Talos Intelligence Cloud
Service for deep URL analysis triggered on various threat indicators. In
addition, a mail log entry of the Unknown URL(s) provides the administrator an
indication of the URL(s) included in a MID and possible remediation with URL
Protection. (See How to configure Cisco Secure Email Account Settings for
Microsoft Azure (Microsoft 365) API - Cisco for more information.)

This example provides context for a content filter for URL Filtering to detect
Unknown URLs:



     

With this content filter in place, Cisco Secure Email scans for a URL with an
Unknown reputation and writes a log line into the mail_logs. Here is an example
from the mail_logs:

Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: ICID 20 ACCEPT SG MY_TRUSTED_HOSTS match 127.0.0.1 SBRS None country United States
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: ICID 20 TLS success protocol TLSv1.2 cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: Start MID 16 ICID 20
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 ICID 20 From: <test@test.com>
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 SDR: Domains for which SDR is requested: reverse DNS host:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, helo:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, env-from: test.com, header-from: Not Present, reply-to: Not Present
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 SDR: Consolidated Sender Threat Level: Neutral, Threat Category: N/A, Suspected Domain(s) : N/A (other reasons for verdict). Sender Maturity: 30 days (or greater) for domain: test.com
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 ICID 20 RID 0 To: <end_user>
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 Message-ID '<20220705165003.1870404@ip-127-0-0-1.internal>'
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 Subject "test is sent you a URL => e835eadd28"
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 SDR: Domains for which SDR is requested: reverse DNS host:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, helo:ip-127-0-0-1.internal, env-from: test.com, header-from: test.com, reply-to: Not Present
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 SDR: Consolidated Sender Threat Level: Neutral, Threat Category: N/A, Suspected Domain(s) : N/A (other reasons for verdict). Sender Maturity: 30 days (or greater) for domain: test.com
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 SDR: Tracker Header : 62c46c29_vrAqZZys2Hqk+BFINVrzdNLLn81kuIf/K6o71YZLVE5c2s8v9M9pKpQZSgtz7a531Dw39F6An2x6tMSucDegqA==
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 ready 3208 bytes from <test@test.com>
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: MID 16 matched all recipients for per-recipient policy DEFAULT in the inbound table
Tue Jul 5 16:51:53 2022 Info: ICID 20 close
Tue Jul 5 16:51:54 2022 Info: MID 16 interim verdict using engine: CASE spam negative
Tue Jul 5 16:51:54 2022 Info: MID 16 using engine: CASE spam negative
Tue Jul 5 16:51:54 2022 Info: MID 16 URL http://mytest.example.com/test_url_2022070503 has reputation noscore matched Condition: URL Reputation Rule
Tue Jul 5 16:51:54 2022 Info: MID 16 Custom Log Entry: <<<=== LOGGING UNKNOWN URL FOR MAIL_LOGS ===>>>
Tue Jul 5 16:51:54 2022 Info: MID 16 queued for delivery
Tue Jul 5 16:51:54 2022 Info: Delivery start DCID 13 MID 16 to RID [0]
Tue Jul 5 16:51:56 2022 Info: Message done DCID 13 MID 16 to RID [0]
Tue Jul 5 16:51:56 2022 Info: MID 16 RID [0] Response '2.6.0 <20220705165003.1870404@ip-127-0-0-1.internal> [InternalId=1198295889556, Hostname=<my>.prod.outlook.com] 15585 bytes in 0.193, 78.747 KB/sec Queued mail for delivery'
Tue Jul 5 16:51:56 2022 Info: Message finished MID 16 done
Tue Jul 5 16:52:01 2022 Info: DCID 13 close

     

The URL mytest.example.com/test_url_2022070503 has no reputation and is seen
with "noscore." The URL_UNKNOWN content filter wrote the logline as configured
to the mail_logs.

After a polling cycle from the Cisco Secure Email Gateway to the Talos
Intelligence Cloud Service, the URL is scanned and determined to be Untrusted.
This can be seen in the ECS logs at the "Trace" level:



     

And then subsequently, in the mail_logs, when the remediation itself is called
and completed:

Tue Jul 5 16:55:42 2022 Info: Message 16 containing URL 'http://mytest.example.com/test_url_2022070503' was initiated for remediation.
Tue Jul 5 16:55:55 2022 Info: Message 16 was processed due to URL retrospection by Mailbox Remediation with 'Delete' remedial action for recipient <end_user>. Profile used to remediate: MSFT_365 Remediation status: Remediated.

     

Administrators must consider action for Unknown URL(s) at their discretion. If
there is a seen increase in Phish-related emails and attachments, please review
the mail_logs and Content Filters report. Additionally, administrators can
configure to have Unknown URL(s) redirected to the Cisco Security proxy service
for click-time evaluation. In this example, navigate to Add Action > URL
Reputation within our URL_UNKNOWN content filter: 



     

The URL is rewritten when clicked to pass through the Cisco Security Proxy for
additional verification. Based on the Cisco Security Proxy verdict, the site
could be inaccessible to the user.

     

Note: When you enable the option to Check URLs within All (Message, Body,
Subject and Attachments), the Action performed for URL in Attachment(s) is
automatically enabled with the only option to Strip Attachment. The option to
strip attachments for some administrators is not preferable. Please review the
action and consider only the option to configure Message Body and Subject.

     

The updated content filter now looks like this example, with the addition of the
Redirect to Cisco Secure Proxy action:



     


QUESTIONABLE URL(S)

Questionable: URL behavior that can indicate risk or could be undesirable. While
not safe for all organizations, this verdict has a low and relatively safe
false-positive (FP) rate. A verdict not blocked prioritizes delivery over
security, which can result in messages that contain risky URLs.
Recommended action: Scan with subsequent engines and block after review.

As we have configured in Unknown URL(s), administrators can find it beneficial
to send Questionable URL(s) to the Cisco Security Proxy or utilize the action to
defang the URL(s) entirely.



     


NEUTRAL URL(S)

Neutral: URL with neither positive nor negative behavior. However, it has been
evaluated. Namely, the URL has no currently known risk. Therefore, this is the
bulk of the reputation verdicts.
Recommended action: Scan with subsequent engines to check for other potentially
malicious content.

Administrators can see a Neutral URL with a negative score as a threat. Evaluate
the number of messages and occurrences of Neutral URL(s) at your discretion.
Similar to how we updated Unknown URL(s) and Questionable URL(s) to utilize the
action to send the URL(s) to the Cisco Security Proxy, Neutral URL(s) or a
Custom Range that includes a subset of the negative side of Neutral can be
considered. This example shows a scan for neutral URLs with the implementation
of this inbound content filter:



     


MESSAGE TRACKING

Review the Message Tracking options for associated URL(s) with MIDs. 
Sometimes, URLs do not log to the mail_logs, and you can locate them in the
Message Tracking details. For example:



Message Tracking also provides Advanced Search options for messages with URL
defense and interaction:



     


REPORTING UNCATEGORIZED AND MISCLASSIFIED URL(S)

A URL can sometimes report as without a reputation or classification. There are
also URL(s) that are miscategorized. To report these URL(s) sightings, visit the
Cisco Talos' Web Categorization Requests at Talos' Reputation Center Support
page.

     

After you report a URL, you can view the status on your My Tickets page.

     


MALICIOUS URLS AND MARKETING MESSAGES ARE NOT CAUGHT BY ANTI-SPAM OR OUTBREAK
FILTERS

This can occur because the site reputation and category are only two criteria
among many that anti-spam and outbreak filters use to determine their verdicts.
To increase the sensitivity of these filters, lower the required thresholds to
take action, such as rewrite or replace URLs with text, quarantine, or
drop messages.

     

Alternatively, you can create content or message filters based on the URL
reputation score.

     


APPENDIX


ENABLE URL FILTERING SUPPORT FOR SHORTENED URLS

Note: This section only applies to AsyncOS 11.1 through 13.0 for Email Security.

URL Filtering support for shortened URLs can be done by CLI only, with the
websecurityadvancedconfig command:

myesa.local> websecurityadvancedconfig

...

Do you want to enable URL filtering for shortened URLs? [N]> Y

For shortened URL support to work, please ensure that ESA is able to connect to following domains:
bit.ly, tinyurl.com, ow.ly, tumblr.com, ff.im, youtu.be, tl.gd, plurk.com, url4.eu, j.mp, goo.gl, yfrog.com, fb.me, alturl.com, wp.me, chatter.com, tiny.cc, ur.ly

Cisco recommends this to be enabled for URL Filtering configuration best
practices. Once enabled, the mail logs reflect anytime a shortened URL is used
within the message:

Mon Aug 27 14:56:49 2018 Info: MID 1810 having URL: http://bit.ly/2tztQUi has been expanded to https://www.wired.com/?p=2270330&drafts-for-friends=js-1036023628&post_type=non-editorial

Once URL Filtering is enabled as described in this article, from the mail_logs
example, we can see the bit.ly link is recorded, AND the original link it
expands out to is also recorded. 


 * ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
   
   
   CISCO SECURE EMAIL GATEWAY DOCUMENTATION
   
   * Release Notes
   * User Guide
   * CLI Reference Guide
   * API Programming Guides for Cisco Secure Email Gateway
   * Open Source Used in Cisco Secure Email Gateway
   * Cisco Content Security Virtual Appliance Installation Guide(includes vESA)
   
   
   SECURE EMAIL CLOUD GATEWAY DOCUMENTATION
   
   * Release Notes
   * User Guide
   
   
   CISCO SECURE EMAIL AND WEB MANAGER DOCUMENTATION
   
   * Release Notes and Compatibility Matrix
   * User Guide
   * API Programming Guides for Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager
   * Cisco Content Security Virtual Appliance Installation Guide(includes vSMA)
   
   
   CISCO SECURE PRODUCT DOCUMENTATION
   
   * Cisco Secure portfolio naming architecture


REVISION HISTORY

Revision Publish Date Comments
3.0
19-Jul-2022
Updated alt text and PII flag
2.0
05-Jul-2022
Update of processes and versions for URL Filtering included in the document.
Change of the example URL was also included.
1.0
23-Feb-2015
Initial Release


CONTRIBUTED BY CISCO ENGINEERS

 * Robert Sherwin
   Cisco Email Security


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 * How to Use dig/nslookup to find SPF, DKIM and DMARC Records for a Domain?
 * Reset Your Administrator Password and Unlock the Administrator User Account
 * Technote on FAQ for Remote Access on Cisco ESA/WSA/SMA
 * Activate Emails Queued for Delivery
 * + Show 3 More


CONTACT CISCO

 * Open a Support Case
 * (Requires a Cisco Service Contract)




THIS DOCUMENT APPLIES TO THESE PRODUCTS

 * Secure Email Gateway



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