I have inherited a rule set from a previous hierarchy and there's a rule I'm not happy with. I want to remove it and replace it with a rule that is more restrictive, but after checking my outgoing TCP services, I found so many random TCP ports that I'm not sure how to be restrictive. Do you have any suggestions besides the obvious (block all ports and wait for the phone to ring)?
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Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial Director
The "random" ports you've found are a result of how TCP connections work. The client initiating the connection uses a well-known port for the destination port (e.g. port 80 for HTTP traffic) and then uses a random high-numbered port for the source port. When the server replies, this situation is reversed. In this example, the source port would be port 80 and the destination port would be the high-numbered port.
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You didn't mention the type of firewall you use. Assuming it's a modern stateful inspection firewall, you don't need to worry about the high-numbered ports. If you want to allow Web traffic from the internal network out to the Internet, you simply need to allow port 80 traffic outbound. The firewall will recognize and handle the traffic for the related high-numbered port used by each connection.
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This was first published in August 2006