Security Basics: RE: Securing webmail - changing a port necessary to ensure securi ty?

["Barrett, Will" <Will.Barrett () trippak com>]

I've set this up for a couple of companies and consulted for a few more that
had it, and my experience has been that there is no real benefit to changing
to an uncommon port, and in cases where they did, it was more of an
inconvenience for offsite employees.  But judging from your question, I
think you already knew that.
If you do want to add security to it, put it behind a VPN connection.  And
get a consultant that knows that security through obscurity isn't.

-WTB 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jennifer Fountain [mailto:jfountain () rbinc com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 9:03 AM
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Securing webmail - changing a port necessary to 
> ensure security?
>
>
> I am going back and forth on this one with a consultant on 
> this one and need an expert opinion.  So, I turn to you :)  
> When configuring webemail (such as owa) that is using https, 
> is it better to change the default port (443) to an uncommon 
> port (20000)for security reasons?  Does it secure it further 
> by doing this?  Wouldn't it cause more issues than anything 
> if you try to access that site from inside an org that only 
> allows port 80/443 and 21 out?  
>
> Thank you in advance for any opinions you may share.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Jennifer Fountain
>
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