Why does Genesys Cloud suggest that port 80 be open?

Genesys Cloud suggests leaving port 80 open to facilitate misconfigured redirects to port 443 (https). Closing port 80 would stop redirects, potentially leaving users with a confusing error state where the browser continues to attempt to connect to port 80 but no message is displayed.

There are various situations outside of our control where a client may attempt to connect through port 80, requiring a redirect. Some browsers may not default to https. Some users may manually enter the non-secure purecloud domain name. In these situations a redirect is required to force https so the client can connect to Genesys Cloud.

Fortunately, allowing port 80 does not introduce security risks since all traffic is redirected to port 443 (https) and Genesys Cloud uses HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) headers.

For more information, see About ports and services for your firewall.