Data Loss Prevention – Unable to Create an Exception for about:blank

Products

• Data Loss Prevention
• Data Loss Prevention Core Package
• Data Loss Prevention Endpoint Prevent
• Data Loss Prevention Enforce

Issue/Introduction

In certain scenarios, Data Loss Prevention incidents may report the URL as about:blank. Customers may attempt to create an exception to allow or exclude the related traffic for this URL; however, this is not supported because about:blank does not represent a valid network destination and is typically not controlled by DLP.

 

Environment

All Symantec Data Loss Prevention versions.

Cause

about:blank is not a valid network URL. It is a browser-internal pseudo-URL that generates an empty or temporary page, handled entirely by the browser without any network traffic or external destination. It does not contain a valid protocol, hostname, or domain.

Because Data Loss Prevention URL exceptions rely on valid network destinations (protocol + host/domain), DLP cannot create or apply an exception for about:blank.

Resolution

Because Data Loss Prevention URL exceptions rely on valid network destinations (protocol + host/domain), DLP cannot create or apply an exception for about:blank.

Additional Information

Reference:

Endpoint incident returns the URL as "about:blank"