Tutorial - ICAP Interface for Virus Scanning and Malware Detection

Owned by
Stonebranch
Last updated: Feb 21, 2023
4 min read

In this tutorial, you will:

  • Create a rule task to send a file for antivirus scanning to an ICAP server.

  • Verify that an infected file is reported and blocked.

  • Access the scanning details for the file


Overview

The Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP) is a lightweight HTTP-like protocol specified in RFC 3507. ICAP is generally used to implement virus scanning and content filters in transparent HTTP proxy caches.

ICAP integration is a common feature of MFT solutions to trigger an antivirus scan before sending a file or after receiving a file. The file can be forwarded to an ICAP server with the ICAP protocol. The ICAP server proceeds with the antivirus scan and reports back the result in the ICAP response message.



The ICAP integration has been tested with c-icap server and follows the protocol standards.

Configuring UDMG to Send File to ICAP server

ICAP Processing Task

The UDMG ICAP task allows the exchange with a server complying with the RFC 3507 standard known as ICAP . It is used to transfer the contents of the file to an ICAP service via a RESPMOD command and to obtain validation of this file by the service (status 204 ).

The task can be configured for every transfer rule for which ICAP integration is required.

The table below shows the list of parameters that are accepted by the ICAP task. Please check for the values that are relevant to your setup with the ICAP antivirus server administrator.

Parameter

Description

path

The actual path of the file on the disk, use the substitution variable #TRUEFULLPATH# that will be replaced by the actual location of the file being transferred.

hostname

The hostname or IP address of the ICAP server, default to localhost

port

The port of the ICAP server, default to 1344

serviceName

The name of the ICAP service on the endpoint

timeout

The timeout while waiting for a response from the ICAP server, in seconds, default to 10s

retry

The number of time to retry after a conneciton failure, default to 1

maxSize

The identifier of the partner who requested the transfer

receiveSize

Specifies the receive size to use, default to 65536 bytes

blockSize

Specifies the send size to use for chunk-encoding, default to 8192 bytes

ignoreNetworkError

Do not raise an error if the file cannot be sent to the ICAP server due to network issue or server not available. Default to false

ignoreTooBigFileError

Do not raise an error if the file is too big for scanning, bigger than maxSize. Default to false


Step 1

From the UDMG navigation pane, select Management > Rules. The Rule list displays.

Step 2

select a rule or create a new one.

The Rule Details displays.

Step 3

Click the Post-tasks tab on the Rule detail panel

  • Edit the form to add an ICAP task and set the parameters for the ICAP server, see below for an example.

Step 4

Click Save and Confirm.

Step 5

The rule is updated to include the ICAP taks as part of the UDMG file transfer workflow.

The task tab shows a green dot to indicate that a task is configured.

Step 6

Proceed with attempting to transfer a test file from EICAR

Step 7

After the file upload, it it transferred to the ICAP antivirus server during the post-task processing and stops in ERROR status. The Error Message indicates that an infection is found.

If not infection was found by the ICAP antivirus server, then the transfer would complete with a successful status

Step 8

The infection error details can be forwarded to UAC as a universal event, see https://stonebranchdocs.atlassian.net/wiki/display/UDMG12/Universal+Event+Integration, and further corrective actions can be triggered by the Controler.

Step 9

The scanning details from the interrogation to the ICAP antivirus server are kept as transfer metadata. They can be displayed, for instnace here with the command line interface using the ‘transfer get’ command.

In particular the X-headers show the type of infection as reported by the server.

$ waarp-gateway transfer get 13
● Transfer 13 (receive as server) [ERROR]
    Remote ID:         1619106277982470144
    Protocol:          sftp
    Rule:              Rec1
    Requester:         user
    Requested:         sftp_server_with_full_path
    Local filepath:    /tmp/sftp_server_with_root/rec1_dir/eicar.com-3
    Remote filepath:   /eicar.com-3
    File size:         68
    Start date:        2023-01-27 22:53:12.865894 +0000 UTC
    End date:          N/A
    Step:              StepPostTasks
    Bytes transferred: 68
    Error code:        TeExternalOperation
    Error message:     Post-tasks failed: Task ICAP @ Rec1 POST[0]: error file infected detected
    Transfer values:
      - Connection: keep-alive
      - Encapsulated: res-hdr=0, res-body=108
      - Istag: CI0001-66wOY91q7DqWWdCBj7SFEgAA
      - Server: C-ICAP/0.5.3
      - X-Infection-Found: Type=0; Resolution=2; Threat=Win.Test.EICAR_HDB-1;
      - X-Violations-Found: 1


Example of rule post-tasks configuration for ICAP
[
    {
        "type": "ICAP",
        "args": {
            "path": "#TRUEFULLPATH#",
            "hostname": "icap-server",
            "serviceName": "avscan",
            "port": "1344"
        }
    }
]