SSL Control and DPI-SSL Compatibility

SonicOS includes SSL Control, a system for providing visibility into the handshake of SSL sessions, and a method for constructing policies to control the establishment of SSL connections. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the dominant standard for the encryption of TCP based network communications, with its most common and well-known application being HTTPS (HTTP over SSL). SSL provides digital certificate-based endpoint identification, and cryptographic and digest-based confidentiality to network communications. 

Deep Packet Inspection of Secure Socket Layer (DPI-SSL) extends SonicWall’s Deep Packet Inspection technology to allow for the inspection of encrypted HTTPS traffic and other SSL-based traffic. The SSL traffic is decrypted transparently, scanned for threats and then re-encrypted and sent along to its destination if no threats or vulnerabilities are found. DPI-SSL provides additional security, application control, and data leakage prevention for analyzing encrypted HTTPS and other SSL-based traffic.

Although it is possible to enable the two services at the same time on the firewall, DPI-SSL takes priority over the management of SSL connections thus SSL Control configuration is not taken into account by the firewall.