blocking skype clients

[kantoborgy]

Dear all,

How I can block skyp with the wingate proxy ? I have wingate 6,0.4

THanks and best regards

[MattP]

Skype uses any port above port 1024 (decided at random on installation) so unless you close all outgoing ports then it's going to be hard to close ports to block skype.

Probably the best bet would be to use the WGIC and with the Central Configuration (requires an Enterprise license) you can specify that the Skpe application can not run on your network. This way none of the client machines will even be able to start Skype.

[genie]

If you have earlier versions of Skype you can block all outgoing traffic to 80.160.91.5. This is the IP address of the login server. If a Skype client cannot connect with the login server, it is unable to login. In Skype version 0.97, the IP address of the login server was 80.160.91.11.

Nowadays Skype routes its login requests through super nodes. So you have to either block all these supernodes or use WGIC as Matt suggested.

[kantoborgy]

I have wingate 6x enterprise 100 concurrent user, How I can proceed with WGIC ?

[jamesc]

I have wingate 6x enterprise 100 concurrent user, How I can proceed with WGIC ?

Here is a small briefing on how to use the WinGate Internet Client (WGIC) to centrally block an application on the network.

1. Install the WGIC on the Skype Users machines
WGIC requires a DNS address set in the clients TCP/IP settings
WGIC Installation file is available from the WinGate server: C:\Program Files\WinGate\Client

2. Open GateKeeper, and on the Systems tab, open up the Winsock Redirector Server, and click the "Central Config"; as shown in image below.
Add a policy for "Everyone" (assuming no one can use Skype)
On the General Settings tab, "you may want to" disable the Clients application list (shown in blue)
On the Applications tab, click the Add button, and add in the exact name of Skype.exe (I guessed)

*Considerations
1. Do your clients have firewalls on their machines? Windows Firewalls?
2. Are the clients also configured for NAT?