Tips & Tricks: Allow or Block YouTube Video

[jdelio]

Tips and Tricks: Allow 1 YouTube video and block others

Read about how you can allow certain YouTube videos but block others through Palo Alto Networks devices and software. We reveal some excellent tips and tricks to help you apply this category to your network. Got questions? Get answers on LIVEcommunity!

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Tips & Tricks, where we give you tips to help get the most out of your Palo Alto Networks devices and software.

This week, I would like to talk about something that I have been dealing with ever since I started at Palo Alto Networks in 2012, and that is YouTube. In this example, I will be talking about allowing one YouTube video and blocking all other YouTube videos. 

YouTube is one of the more difficult applications to nail down, as they are infamous for changing algorithms about every six months. Just when you think you have the magic combination, things change. Well, that's all different now.

The secret I was just told about is this:

Instead of using a URL Filtering Policy,  just use the Custom URL Category. That in conjunction with SSL Decryption and blocking the quic protocol, as it can bypass SSL decryption.

Firewall interface view of Custom URL Category for the one YouTube video.

Instead of having to add a bunch of other (random) YouTube video pages, you can now just enter the one video for the allowed Custom URL Category.

Custom URL Category popup in the firewall interface, showing how to add new category.

Again, now it is easier than ever to enter this website: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=" to catch all other YouTube videos that you want to block.

Plug that into your rulebase, again with SSL Decryption and blocking quic, and you should be golden!

This and more details are inside of this Knowledge Base article here:

How to Allow a Single YouTube Video and Block All Other Videos

I hope this really helps you with YouTube!

Thanks for taking time to read my blog.
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Stay Secure,
Joe Delio
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