Dreaming of your own security policy management personal assistant?

Security policy management is a serious business, performed by a group of experienced professionals. These people live and breathe the network, know which firewall protects which network, where the PCI zone is, and how the routers connect your PC to the data center, or to the applications running in the cloud.

They also have access to all security devices and platforms, can see what’s there and make changes as needed. They can check whether a firewall is blocking certain traffic, do their magic and open ports for new applications, and know what’s the status of the change request that was opened a couple of days ago. If they really know their stuff (or use AlgoSec), they can even answer questions such as “which business application will be affected if I take down this server or this firewall?” or “who should I talk to if I want to remove this firewall rule?”.

Oh, how lucky we are to have these people around…

But wait.

What if we had a security policy personal assistant – a “Siri” or “Alexa” – who knows every detail about our very own security policies, and could answer our questions, or go ahead and open these ports for us?

Wouldn’t that be just great…?

This assistant could allow application owners, cyber analysts, help desk and support teams to get all the answers they need without troubling their firewall administrators or their security teams. It would also simplify their lives when they need to request a change in the security policy, such as when application starts using a new port or a server is being migrated to the cloud.

And while we’re at it – let’s make it even easier – let them just chat with this assistant, using the Slack or Skype for Business app on their mobile! No new interface to learn – just talk to the guy like they would talk to the network security team!

Firewall admins who manage these policies will finally have some peace and quiet to actually do the smart stuff they need to do, without being interrupted every minute with questions, requests and checks.

That would truly be amazing??

Dream no more – it’s here. AlgoBot, it’s nice to meet you!

AlgoBot can do exactly that!

AlgoBot is a chat bot, meaning you can chat with it, ask it questions, make requests, etc. from the comfort of your chat room, mobile, or IM application.

AlgoBot lives in your organization’s Slack or Skype for Business, and is an active member of the team – helping out with all security policy management tasks.

People can direct questions and requests in natural language directly to AlgoBot or invite it to join a channel with the team. AlgoBot is always available to address questions and requests such as “is http allowed from 192.168.6.1 to 8.8.8.8?”, “what’s the status of the Payroll application?”, “list all applications associated with 192.168.6.1”, or “what is the status of change request #1234?”), and answers within seconds via the chat. It’s never too busy, and can talk to multiple people at the same time, without mixing things up.

Not only does AlgoBot improve the service to application owners, helpdesk, IT and analysts, and frees up the time of the network and firewall administrators, it also serves as an intuitive and very accessible assistant to the network and firewall teams themselves. They can use AlgoBot to troubleshoot connectivity issues, check which change requests are waiting on them, or even approve requests, without logging into another system or opening a new browser window.

The power of AlgoSec – at your fingertips.

Oh, and one more thing – it also speaks French… très cool!

To see AlgoBot in action, check out our short demo