FTP Logon Attempt Restriction in IIS 8.0- Server 2012

In IIS 8.0 Microsoft has introduced a new security feature for FTP service to prevent the hackers from accessing the FTP server called FTP Logon Restriction.

Hackers can use Scripts ,Brute-force attacks that can create a Denial-of-Service (DoS) condition that can prevent legitimate Users from accessing an FTP server.

This feature provides an additional password lockout policy that is specific to the FTP service.FTP Logon Attempt Restrictions lets you block offending users from logging on to an IIS FTP server for a specified period of time.Once the number of logon attempts has been reached, the Ftp service will disconnect the Ftp session, and it will block the IP address of the client from connecting until the time period has passed. It will not  blacklists any client whose IP address violates the configured dynamic IP address filtering settings, FTP Logon Attempt Restrictions uses a “gray listing” approach that denies only the offending user for a certain period of time.

However, by configuring this time period to be slightly more than that specified by your Domain account lockout policy, you can prevent malicious users from locking legitimate users out of accessing your FTP Server.

For Example, if you configured your FTP 8 server for a maximum of four failed logon attempts, you could configure your password lockout policy for a maximum of five failed logon attempts. In this way, a malicious Ftp client would be blocked once it reached four failed logon attempts, and yet the valid user would still be able to access the account if he or she attempted to log on during the time period where the attacker was blocked.

Lets Configure FTP Logon Attempt Restriction:

1.Logon as an administrator  in Windows Server 2012

2.Open IIS Manager.

3.Click on your Server Name in the Connection pane and then Double click on FTP Logon Attempt Restrictions.

4.Check the box to Enable FTP Logon Attempt Restrictions, and specify the number of failed login attempts and time period that the FTP service uses to determine whether to block access for FTP clients.

5. Click Apply.