About Cisco Umbrella Connector
If you use Cisco Umbrella, you can configure the Cisco Umbrella Connector to redirect DNS queries to Cisco Umbrella. This allows Cisco Umbrella to identify requests to black- or grey-list domain names and apply your DNS-based security policy.
The Umbrella Connector is part of the system’s DNS inspection. If your existing DNS inspection policy map decides to block or drop a request based on your DNS inspection settings, the request is not forwarded to Cisco Umbrella. Thus, you have two lines of protection: your local DNS inspection policy and your Cisco Umbrella cloud-based policy.
When redirecting DNS lookup requests to Cisco Umbrella, the Umbrella Connector adds an EDNS (Extension mechanisms for DNS) record. An EDNS record includes the device identifier information, organization ID, and client IP address. Your cloud-based policy can use those criteria to control access in addition to the reputation of the FQDN. You can also elect to encrypt the DNS request using DNSCrypt to ensure the privacy of usernames and internal IP addresses.
Cisco Umbrella Enterprise Security Policy
In your cloud-based Cisco Umbrella Enterprise Security policy, you can control access based on the reputation of the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) in the DNS lookup request. Your Enterprise Security policy can enforce one of the following actions:
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Allow—If you have no block rules for an FQDN, and Cisco Umbrella determines that it belongs to a non-malicious site, then the site’s actual IP address is returned. This is normal DNS lookup behavior.
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Proxy—If you have no block rules for an FQDN, and Cisco Umbrella determines that it belongs to a suspicious site, then the DNS reply returns the IP address of the Umbrella intelligent proxy. The proxy can then inspect the HTTP connection and apply URL filtering. You must ensure that intelligent proxy is enabled from the Cisco Umbrella dashboard (
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Block—If you explicitly block an FQDN, or Cisco Umbrella determines that it belongs to a malicious site, then the DNS reply returns the IP address of the Umbrella cloud landing page for blocked connections.
Cisco Umbrella Registration
When you configure the Umbrella Connector on a device, it registers with Cisco Umbrella in the cloud. The registration process assigns a single device ID, which identifies one of the following:
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One standalone device in single context mode.
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One high availability pair in single context mode.
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One cluster in single context mode.
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One security context in a multiple-context standalone device.
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One security context of a high availability pair
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One security context of a cluster.
Once registered, the device details will appear on the Cisco Umbrella dashboard. You can then change which policy is attached to a device. During registration, either the policy you specify in the configuration is used, or the default policy is assigned. You can assign the same Umbrella policy to multiple devices. If you specify the policy, the device ID you receive differs from what you would get if you did not specify a policy.