How to Avoid Block Pages for Social Plugins on Third Party Websites

Overview

This document describes how to avoid block pages for social plugins on other websites, while keeping the original website blocked.

Issue

When a social networking website, such as Facebook, is blocked by a Palo Alto Networks firewall using an application block page or url filtering page, a Facebook social plugin on other websites would also display that unwanted response block page.

In the example shown below, a redirected page shows a semi-transparent block page for the Facebook social plugin.

Resolution

1. Configure two security rules:
   • Security rule to allow facebook-social-plugin on application-default service
   • Security rule to block the facebook application
     
     
     
2. Go to Device > Response Pages > Application Block Page, check Enable Application Block Page and click OK
   
   
   As shown in the example below, this verifies that the primary website gets completely blocked, and at the same time other websites can load and appear readable without showing any response pages for social plugins.
   

owner: kadak