Chapter 14. Protecting SharePoint with Advanced Antivirus and Edge Security Solutions

In today’s risk-fraught computing environment, any exposed service is subject to frequent attack from the Internet. This is particularly true for web services, including those offered by SharePoint 2010. Exploits using the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) that these services use are becoming very common, and it is not considered best practice to make a SharePoint server directly accessible via the Internet.

Fortunately, the productivity gains in SharePoint 2010 can still be utilized and made more accessible by securing them behind a reverse-proxy server such as Microsoft’s Forefront Threat Management Gateway (Forefront TMG) 2010 or Forefront Unified Access Gateway (Forefront UAG) 2010. These tools, part of the Forefront Edge line, allow for advanced application layer filtering of network traffic, greatly securing the overall SharePoint environment.

This chapter details the ways that SharePoint 2010 sites can be secured using the Forefront TMG 2010 and Forefront UAG 2010 products. Deployment scenarios for securing SharePoint-related services with Forefront TMG/UAG are outlined, and specific step-by-step guides are illustrated.

In addition to information on the Forefront Edge line, this chapter covers advanced antivirus capabilities using Forefront Protection for SharePoint, Microsoft’s SharePoint-aware antivirus utility.