CODEWITHSUNDEEP
firewall
Josh O'Connor
Josh O'Connor

Reputation: 4962

Block Facebook access on mobile devices from router

I am trying to block all traffic from a Facebook app, iOS and Android, on a particular network. I can block web access, meaning if a user tries to log in to www.facebook.com from a computer, the router will detect and block it. The user won't be able to have access.

However, mobile apps go through just fine on the same network. I need to prevent users from using the Facebook app on their phone. How do I do this?

I was thinking of using WireShark to see what URL the phone app is connecting to and blocking that URL. I'm sure this is fine, but is there a baseURL I can block which prevents mobile users from accessing Facebook? Is there a list of Facebook URLS I can block which prevent app access?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 9516

Answers (1)

Ajay Brahmakshatriya
Ajay Brahmakshatriya

Reputation: 9203

Whatever tool you are using on the router, I am sure must be supporting pattern matching while filtering packets.

So I suggest you can block all traffic for *.facebook.com and *.messenger.com.

Having said that it is probably not enough to just filter HTTP packets based on URL. There are ways of circumventing this using VPNs or proxy websites.

You should consider blocking all outgoing traffic on ports other than 80 and 443.

Similarly other protocols like ICMP or UDP too because they can be used to tunnel VPN connections.

I am saying this because we have applied all these methods to get unrestricted access at uni. :)

Probably you can use a proxy server like squid to control the traffic better.

Upvotes: 1

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