Network Content Filtering for outbound EC2 traffic.

Question

Hi all,

What are you all using for network/content filtering for outbound traffic to the internet from your EC2 instances? We use Meraki network equipment for our local networks which simplifies the administrative overhead. However, we don't have a solution for our EC2 instances. Of specific interest would be category based content filtering (blocking video streaming sites, cloud storage, etc.).

Can you recommend anything whether its in the AWS Marketplace or a roll-your-own solution? I've been looking at AWS Network Firewall as a potential solution, however, it appears to be a lot more granular than I need it to be.

Thanks!

Riku_Kobayashi · Answer

Hello.

In the past, we introduced AWS Network Firewall for the purpose of filtering domain names.  
AWS Network Firewall could not completely prevent communication because it is possible to communicate with a destination of any IP address by making a request with the Host header or SNI server_name set to a permitted domain name.  
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ja_jp/network-firewall/latest/developerguide/suricata-examples.html

Among the products on the marketplace, I think the Palo Alto Networks product that can be used as a Gateway Load Balancer is famous.  
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2022/03/next-generation-firewall-service-for-aws/

Network Content Filtering for outbound EC2 traffic.

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