MS Update and SSL Decryption

cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Announcements
Please sign in to see details of an important advisory in our Customer Advisories area.

MS Update and SSL Decryption

L2 Linker

We are having a problem with MS update and SSL decryption. Currently when a windows machine goes out to get its updates it fails. This appears to be because of the SSL decryption. I tested this by excluding one PC from encryption and it worked just fine. So my question is what are other Administrators doing to allow MS Updates to by-pass encryption?

1 accepted solution

Accepted Solutions

Hi alexander.graser

Yes the application is excluded from SSL decryption but if the SSL connection is rejected right away by server i.e. server does not send a HELLO in response to HELLO from client SSL decryption exclude list will not be checked.

To have the application excluded you will have to create a no-decrypt policy for URL update.microsoft.com, *.update.microsoft.com

Hope it helps!

View solution in original post

12 REPLIES 12

L6 Presenter

Hi Mattk,

Please refer following document, ms-update is not supported for "SSL decryption". Please exclude it.

List of Applications Excluded from SSL Decryption

Regards,

Hardik Shah

I saw that, but I see no where in the decryption rules where I can exclude based on Application ID. Where would I locate that?

Hi Matlk,

It can not be done throgh application ID. You can do it with most probable destination IPs of ms-update servers. You can find it from traffic logs. Let me know if that helps.

Regards,

Hardik Shah

So if I understand what you are saying. Use the traffic logs to identify the MS Update server IP Addresses and then have the system not decrypt traffic to those IP's. Is that correct?

Hi Mattk,

That is absolutely right.

Regards,

Hardik Shah

Hi Matttk,

If URL is fixed for update server, than you can try custom URL. Let me know if you need my help with that.

Decryption profile follows URL/Custom URL category.

Regards,

Hardik Shah

Not applicable

Hi

I had the same issue but now its working fine.

I was unable to access the server that is "fe2.update.microsoft.com".

This issue was due to fail decryption but it was solved by adding the url list of non-decrypt.

There is a bug for the problem that exception for ms-update is not working.

The server is not accepting the cipher suite the firewall sends, so it terminates the connection immediately before the exclude list has been populated.

So, it is not created at the timing of just sending Client Hello.

Regards,

L2 Linker

Hi!

reading this thread I´m getting a littlebit confused. Maybay someone can spread a light on this:

Document "List of Applications Excluded from SSL Decryption" mentioned by hshah says: "These applications are added to an exclude list in each Content load so that the SSL engine will allow them to pass through, rather than trying to decrypt them."


As far as I understand it, this means that ms-update (as it is listed) should be excluded from SSL-Decryption.

So my question is: if we´re using SSL-Decryption without any custom excpetions, is access to ms-update possible or not?

If it is not possible, what should be done to enable access to ms-update?

Thanks in advice,

Alex.

Hi alexander.graser

Yes the application is excluded from SSL decryption but if the SSL connection is rejected right away by server i.e. server does not send a HELLO in response to HELLO from client SSL decryption exclude list will not be checked.

To have the application excluded you will have to create a no-decrypt policy for URL update.microsoft.com, *.update.microsoft.com

Hope it helps!

Thank you bat,

I think now it´s a littlebit more clear to me.

So the exclusion of ms-update from SSL-Decryption does not work with Windows-Update.

Does anyone know if the no-decrypt policy for URL update.microsoft.com and *.update.microsoft.com is working for all Windows Versions - ie Win7, Win8, Win8.1 and Win10-Beta?

Alex.

Hi Alex,

Yes, I have tested and it is working. However, I am not sure about Win10-Beta version.

Regards,

Ramya

Thanks, Ramya!

I´ve added update.microsoft.com and *.update.microsoft.com to our no-decrypt policy and it seems to work for me, too.

Greetings,

Alex.

  • 1 accepted solution
  • 12776 Views
  • 12 replies
  • 0 Likes
Like what you see?

Show your appreciation!

Click Like if a post is helpful to you or if you just want to show your support.

Click Accept as Solution to acknowledge that the answer to your question has been provided.

The button appears next to the replies on topics you’ve started. The member who gave the solution and all future visitors to this topic will appreciate it!

These simple actions take just seconds of your time, but go a long way in showing appreciation for community members and the LIVEcommunity as a whole!

The LIVEcommunity thanks you for your participation!