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Implement micro-segmentation effectively, from strategy to execution, to enhance security, minimize risks, and protect critical assets across your network. Micro-segmentation from strategy to execution ------- ---- Select a size ----- Get the latest insights from the experts Choose a better way to manage your network

What is Firewall Traffic Analysis? Firewall traffic analysis (FTA) is a network security operation that grants visibility into the data... Firewall Policy Management Firewall Traffic Analysis: The Complete Guide Asher Benbenisty 8 min read Asher Benbenisty Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 10/24/23 Published What is Firewall Traffic Analysis? Firewall traffic analysis (FTA) is a network security operation that grants visibility into the data packets that travel through your network’s firewalls. Cybersecurity professionals conduct firewall traffic analysis as part of wider network traffic analysis (NTA) workflows. The traffic monitoring data they gain provides deep visibility into how attacks can penetrate your network and what kind of damage threat actors can do once they succeed. NTA vs. FTA Explained NTA tools provide visibility into things like internal traffic inside the data center, inbound VPN traffic from external users, and bandwidth metrics from Internet of Things (iOT) endpoints. They inspect on-premises devices like routers and switches, usually through a unified, vendor-agnostic interface. Network traffic analyzers do inspect firewalls, but might stop short of firewall-specific network monitoring and management. FTA tools focus more exclusively on traffic patterns through the organization’s firewalls. They provide detailed information on how firewall rules interact with traffic from different sources. This kind of tool might tell you how a specific Cisco firewall conducts deep packet inspection on a certain IP address, and provide broader metrics on how your firewalls operate overall. It may also provide change management tools designed to help you optimize firewall rules and security policies . Firewall Rules Overview Your firewalls can only protect against security threats effectively when they are equipped with an optimized set of rules. These rules determine which users are allowed to access network assets and what kind of network activity is allowed. They play a major role in enforcing network segmentation and enabling efficient network management. Analyzing device policies for an enterprise network is a complex and time-consuming task. Minor mistakes can lead to critical risks remaining undetected and expose network devices to cyberattacks. For this reason, many security leaders use automated risk management solutions that include firewall traffic analysis. These tools perform a comprehensive analysis of firewall rules and communicate the risks of specific rules across every device on the network. This information is important because it will inform the choices you make during real-time traffic analysis. Having a comprehensive view of your security risk profile allows you to make meaningful changes to your security posture as you analyze firewall traffic. Performing Real-Time Traffic Analysis AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer captures information on the following traffic types: External IP addresses Internal IP addresses (public and private, including NAT addresses) Protocols (like TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP, and others) Port numbers and applications for sources and destinations Incoming and outgoing traffic Potential intrusions The platform also supports real-time network traffic analysis and monitoring. When activated, it will periodically inspect network devices for changes to their policy rules, object definitions, audit logs, and more. You can view the changes detected for individual devices and groups, and filter the results to find specific network activities according to different parameters. For any detected change, Firewall Analyzer immediately aggregates the following data points: Device – The device where the changes happened. Date/Time – The exact time when the change was made. Changed by – Tells you which administrator performed the change. Summary – Lists the network assets impacted by the change. Many devices supported by Firewall Analyzer are actually systems of devices that work together. You can visualize the relationships between these assets using the device tree format. This presents every device as a node in the tree, giving you an easy way to manage and view data for individual nodes, parents nodes, and global categories. For example, Firewall Analyzer might discover a redundant rule copied across every firewall in your network. If its analysis shows that the rule triggers frequently, it might recommend moving to a higher node on the device tree. If it turns out the rule never triggers, it may recommend adjusting the rule or deleting it completely. If the rule doesn’t trigger because it conflicts with another firewall rule, it’s clear that some action is needed. Importance of Visualization and Reporting Open source network analysis tools typically work through a command-line interface or a very simple graphic user interface. Most of the data you can collect through these tools must be processed separately before being communicated to non-technical stakeholders. High-performance firewall analysis tools like AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer provide additional support for custom visualizations and reports directly through the platform. Visualization allows non-technical stakeholders to immediately grasp the importance of optimizing firewall policies, conducting netflow analysis, and improving the organization’s security posture against emerging threats. For security leaders reporting to board members and external stakeholders, this can dramatically transform the success of security initiatives. AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer includes a Visualize tab that allows users to create custom data visualizations. You can save these visualizations individually or combine them into a dashboard. Some of the data sources you can use to create visualizations include: Interactive searches Saved searches Other saved visualizations Traffic Analysis Metrics and Reports Custom visualizations enhance reports by enabling non-technical audiences to understand complex network traffic metrics without the need for additional interpretation. Metrics like speed, bandwidth usage, packet loss, and latency provide in-depth information about the reliability and security of the network. Analyzing these metrics allows network administrators to proactively address performance bottlenecks, network issues, and security misconfigurations. This helps the organization’s leaders understand the network’s capabilities and identify the areas that need improvement. For example, an organization that is planning to migrate to the cloud must know whether its current network infrastructure can support that migration. The only way to guarantee this is by carefully measuring network performance and proactively mitigating security risks. Network traffic analysis tools should do more than measure simple metrics like latency. They need to combine latency into complex performance indicators that show how much latency is occuring, and how network conditions impact those metrics. That might include measuring the variation in delay between individual data packets (jitter), Packet Delay Variation (PDV), and others. With the right automated firewall analysis tool, these metrics can help you identify and address security vulnerabilities as well. For example, you could automate the platform to trigger alerts when certain metrics fall outside safe operating parameters. Exploring AlgoSec’s Network Traffic Analysis Tool AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer provides a wide range of operations and optimizations to security teams operating in complex environments. It enables firewall performance improvements and produces custom reports with rich visualizations demonstrating the value of its optimizations. Some of the operations that Firewall Analyzer supports include: Device analysis and change tracking reports. Gain in-depth data on device policies, traffic, rules, and objects. It analyzes the routing table that produces a connectivity diagram illustrating changes from previous reports on every device covered. Traffic and routing queries. Run traffic simulations on specific devices and groups to find out how firewall rules interact in specific scenarios. Troubleshoot issues that emerge and use the data collected to prevent disruptions to real-world traffic. This allows for seamless server IP migration and security validation. Compliance verification and reporting. Explore the policy and change history of individual devices, groups, and global categories. Generate custom reports that meet the requirements of corporate regulatory standards like Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and others. Rule cleanup and auditing. Identify firewall rules that are either unused, timed out, disabled, or redundant. Safely remove rules that fail to improve your security posture, improving the efficiency of your firewall devices. List unused rules, rules that don’t conform to company policy, and more. Firewall Analyzer can even re-order rules automatically, increasing device performance while retaining policy logic. User notifications and alerts. Discover when unexpected changes are made and find out how those changes were made. Monitor devices for rule changes and send emails to pre-assigned users with device analyses and reports. Network Traffic Analysis for Threat Detection and Response By monitoring and inspecting network traffic patterns, firewall analysis tools can help security teams quickly detect and respond to threats. Layer on additional technologies like Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Network Detection and Response (NDR), and Threat Intelligence feeds to transform network analysis into a proactive detection and response solution. IDS solutions can examine packet headers, usage statistics, and protocol data flows to find out when suspicious activity is taking place. Network sensors may monitor traffic that passes through specific routers or switches, or host-based intrusion detection systems may monitor traffic from within a host on the network. NDR solutions use a combination of analytical techniques to identify security threats without relying on known attack signatures. They continuously monitor and analyze network traffic data to establish a baseline of normal network activity. NDR tools alert security teams when new activity deviates too far from the baseline. Threat intelligence feeds provide live insight on the indicators associated with emerging threats. This allows security teams to associate observed network activities with known threats as they develop in real-time. The best threat intelligence feeds filter out the huge volume of superfluous threat data that doesn’t pertain to the organization in question. Firewall Traffic Analysis in Specific Environments On-Premises vs. Cloud-hosted Environments Firewall traffic analyzers exist in both on-premises and cloud-based forms. As more organizations migrate business-critical processes to the cloud, having a truly cloud-native network analysis tool is increasingly important. The best of these tools allow security teams to measure the performance of both on-premises and cloud-hosted network devices, gathering information from physical devices, software platforms, and the infrastructure that connects them. Securing the Internet of Things It’s also important that firewall traffic analysis tools take Internet of Things (IoT) devices in consideration. These should be grouped separately from other network assets and furnished with firewall rules that strictly segment them. Ideally, if threat actors compromise one or more IoT devices, network segmentation won’t allow the attack to spread to other parts of the network. Conducting firewall analysis and continuously auditing firewall rules ensures that the barriers between network segments remain viable even if peripheral assets (like IoT devices) are compromised. Microsoft Windows Environments Organizations that rely on extensive Microsoft Windows deployments need to augment the built-in security capabilities that Windows provides. On its own, Windows does not offer the kind of in-depth security or visibility that organizations need. Firewall traffic analysis can play a major role helping IT decision-makers deploy technologies that improve the security of their Windows-based systems. Troubleshooting and Forensic Analysis Firewall analysis can provide detailed information into the causes of network problems, enabling IT professionals to respond to network issues more quickly. There are a few ways network administrators can do this: Analyzing firewall logs. Log data provides a wealth of information on who connects to network assets. These logs can help network administrators identify performance bottlenecks and security vulnerabilities that would otherwise go unnoticed. Investigating cyberattacks. When threat actors successfully breach network assets, they can leave behind valuable data. Firewall analysis can help pinpoint the vulnerabilities they exploited, providing security teams with the data they need to prevent future attacks. Conducting forensic analysis on known threats. Network traffic analysis can help security teams track down ransomware and malware attacks. An organization can only commit resources to closing its security gaps after a security professional maps out the killchain used by threat actors to compromise network assets. Key Integrations Firewall analysis tools provide maximum value when integrated with other security tools into a coherent, unified platform. Security information and event management (SIEM) tools allow you to orchestrate network traffic analysis automations with machine learning-enabled workflows to enable near-instant detection and response. Deploying SIEM capabilities in this context allows you to correlate data from different sources and draw logs from devices across every corner of the organization – including its firewalls. By integrating this data into a unified, centrally managed system, security professionals can gain real-time information on security threats as they emerge. AlgoSec’s Firewall Analyzer integrates seamlessly with leading SIEM solutions, allowing security teams to monitor, share, and update firewall configurations while enriching security event data with insights gleaned from firewall logs. Firewall Analyzer uses a REST API to transmit and receive data from SIEM platforms, allowing organizations to program automation into their firewall workflows and manage their deployments from their SIEM. Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* Phone number* country* Select country... By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

Silos hurt security NetworkSecurity is the responsibility of both NetOps SecOps In this panel with Cisco, Conscia AlgoSec security experts, we’ll share how to bring the teams together Webinars Bridging NetOps and SecOps: An Experts’ Panel Silos hurt security. Your network and its security are not managed by just one team. It is the responsibility of both NetOps and SecOps, but these teams don’t always play well together. In this security experts’ panel, Doug Hurd from Cisco, Henrik Skovfoged from Conscia, Oren Amiram and Tsippi Dach from AlgoSec will share how you can bring NetOps and SecOps teams together with Cisco ACI, Cisco Secure Workload (formerly Cisco Tetration) and AlgoSec. Discover how NetOps and SecOps teams can: Bridge the NetOps/SecOps divide, improve communication, and break down the silos between network and security. Align network, security, and business application owners Improve the entire network security with Cisco Secure Workload and firewall management Automate tasks and gain network traffic visibility of networks and security controls for threat detection, analysis and response across Cisco ACI and the entire hybrid and multi-vendor network. March 16, 2021 Alex Hilton Chief Executive at Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) Tsippi Dach Director of marketing communications Relevant resources Cisco & AlgoSec achieving application-driven security across your hybrid network Keep Reading DevSecOps: Putting the Sec into the DevOps Keep Reading Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... phone By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

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Explore Algosec's customer success stories to see how organizations worldwide improve security, compliance, and efficiency with our solutions. State of Utah Network Security Management Breaks the Service Bottleneck Organization State of Utah Industry Government Headquarters Salt Lake City, Utah, United States Download case study Share Customer
success stories "With AlgoSec, I am able to get requests completed within minutes." State government rapidly accelerates security policy changes while increasing security and compliance Background Utah is home to over three million people. It is one of America’s fastest-growing states and the fastest-growing economy by job growth in the nation. The Department of Technology Services (DTS) is the technology service provider for the executive branch of the State of Utah, providing services to Utah’s citizens. DTS supports the computing infrastructure for the state government, including 22,000 telephones, 20,000 desktop computers, 2,400 servers, 1,300 online services, monitors over 4 million visits to Utah.gov per month, and secures against more than 500 million daily IT intrusion attempts. Challenge Over forty firewall pairs and hundreds of other devices help the Department of Technology Services serve and secure the Utah government.“Before AlgoSec, it was very challenging for us to manage firewalls,” stated the department’s Director of Information Technology. Some of the challenges included: Firewall rule requests took up 70% of employees’ daily time. Agencies and staff frequently complained about slow response times, impacting their productivity while staff worked through a lengthy manual process to fulfill requests. Human errors slowed down the processes, requiring extra layers of quality assurance. Large rule request projects took several months to complete. Employee onboarding took several months. New employees could not independently support firewall request changes for the first few months after joining the team. Solutions The State of Utah was searching for a solution that provided: Automation of firewall management Actionable reports to ease compliance requirements Ease of deployment Following an in-depth evaluation, the State of Utah selected AlgoSec’s security policy management solution.“We evaluated several other products but none of them really automated at the level that we wanted,” said the director of IT. “AlgoSec’s automation really stood out.” The State of Utah chose to start with AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer (AFA) and AlgoSec FireFlow (AFF), two of the flagship products in the AlgoSec suite.AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer delivers visibility and analysis of complex network security policies across on-premise, cloud, and hybrid networks. It automates and simplifies security operations including troubleshooting, auditing, and risk analysis. Using Firewall Analyzer, the State of Utah can optimize the configuration of firewalls, and network infrastructure to ensure security and compliance. AlgoSec FireFlow enables security staff to automate the entire security policy change process from design and submission to proactive risk analysis, implementation, validation, and auditing. Its intelligent, automated workflows save time and improve security by eliminating manual errors and reducing risk. Results By using the AlgoSec Security Management solution, the State of Utah was able to accelerate their security policy management, provide better and faster service to state agencies, accelerate employee onboarding, and enhance network segmentation.Some of the benefits gained include: Fast and easy deployment – they were up and running within a few weeks. Faster turnaround to firewall requests from staff supporting agencies and priority initiatives. Reduced time to implement large rule request for projects, such as deployments, migrations, and decommissions — from months to minutes. Better knowledge sharing – hosting staff and extended staff outside of network operations get more accurate insights into firewalls and infrastructure topologies and traffic flows. This sped up troubleshooting and reduced superfluous requests covered by existing rules. Elimination of human error and rework thanks to policy automation. Accelerated employee onboarding – employees joining our network operations team are now able to fulfill firewall change requests within two weeks of starting work – down from 3 months – an 80% reduction. “I’ve been able to jump in and use AlgoSec. It’s been really intuitive” , concluded the IT director. “I am very pleased with this product! ” Schedule time with one of our experts

Learn best practices to secure your cloud environment and deliver applications securely Webinars State of Ransomware: Caught between perception and reality Ransomware continues to be a major problem—and the problem is only getting worse. An exclusive ExtraHop 2022 survey conducted with over 500 security and IT decision makers provided some sobering responses: 85% of those surveyed reported suffering at least one ransomware attack while an alarming 74% have experienced multiple attacks. Yet most IT decision makers (77%) are confident in their ability to prevent or mitigate all cybersecurity threats, including ransomware. In this webinar, we take an in-depth look into the implications of this alarming trend and provide a turnkey strategy that organizations can implement today to safeguard their most critical data stored in their business applications and increase their level of ransomware preparedness. Join us for: * In-depth analysis of infamous ransomware attacks * Ways to identify and remediate vulnerabilities at the application level * A practical application centric approach that can support your pre-existing security measures * Mitigation measures to consider at the onset of your next ransomware attack * Ransomware future trends predictions January 24, 2023 Eric Jeffery Regional Sales Engineer Relevant resources Reducing risk of ransomware attacks - back to basics Keep Reading Fighting Ransomware - CTO Roundtable Insights Keep Reading Ransomware Attack: Best practices to help organizations proactively prevent, contain and Keep Reading Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... phone By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

Explore Algosec's customer success stories to see how organizations worldwide improve security, compliance, and efficiency with our solutions. ORMAT MANAGES RISK AND NERC COMPLIANCE WITH ALGOSEC Organization ORMAT Industry Technology Headquarters Reno, Nevada, United States Download case study Share Customer
success stories "We’re managing our network security with much greater confidence. With the value of the time we save and our improved compliance readiness, we can clearly see that AlgoSec is delivering on our investment" Global Geothermal Power Producer Improves Security and Compliance and Takes Control of DailyFirewall Management Operations at 14 Global Facilities AlgoSec Business Impact • Automated notifications improve firewall management processes.• Visibility of firewall rules allows better management of security infrastructure.• Built-in reports provide instant proof of SOX and NERC compliance. Background Ormat Technologies, Inc. a world leader in the geothermal power plant sector, is committed to developing green, sustainable energy solutions. The company has installed over 2000 MW of geothermal and Recovered Energy (REG) power plants worldwide. Ormat’s global IT department manages network security and ensures compliance with SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) regulations and NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) at 14 of its power plants. Challenge Ormat’s firewall configurations typically need updating on a daily basis to address the changing roles and information technology requirements of Ormat’s global employees. As the department has assumed greater responsibility for regulatory compliance in addition to internal operations, firewall management has become cumbersome and costly.“With multiple managers adding and changing firewall configurations at our various locations, we had no way to review each change, see who made it, or know if a change was made at all,” explains Meir Moshka, IT Manager at Ormat. Without this information, reviewing firewall configurations against regulations and standards was difficult and time-consuming. “To stay compliant and secure, we needed better controls for firewall management, but we also had to stay responsive to the employees we serve,” says Moshka. Solution After evaluating several firewall management products, Ormat selected the AlgoSec Security Management solution for its ease of use, and for the superiority of its built-in SOX and NERC compliance reports. “The web user interface is easy and friendly,” comments Moshka. His team installed and tested AlgoSec themselves, in a matter of days. Another capability that drove Ormat to select AlgoSec was its ability to create a workflow for their firewall configuration process. “Every time a change is made, the security manager receives an email describing the new configuration,” says Moshka. “The change is only made after the manager approves it.” The new process will ensure that all configuration changes are properly reviewed. Results Today, in addition to maintaining its network security policies more effectively, Ormat is dramatically reducing the time spent preparing for compliance audits. “Together, the firewall management process and reports keep us ready for an audit at all times. We save a great deal of audit preparation time because we already review each configuration change against the requirements on a daily basis.” Automated compliance reporting also gives Ormat the power to demonstrate compliance to customers and prospects, as the company pursues new contracts for power plant operations in the US. “By using the built-in reports, we can instantly show we are NERC and SOX compliant. It’s a valuable proof for the plant owners.” Moshka and his team also rely on AlgoSec’s built-in knowledgebase of best practices for firewall configuration. Additionally, they have customized the out-of-the-box functionality by defining additional risks that apply to Ormat’s environment. With their customized risk profile in place, each firewall configuration change is evaluated against the knowledgebase to determine which configurations to improve or avoid. “Often, a change to the firewall needs to be more restrictive than we thought,” says Moshka. “AlgoSec gives us recommendations for each new change, and we minimize security risks by following them.” Another improvement is how AlgoSec’s policy cleanup and optimization features ensure Ormat’s security policy is streamlined and easy to maintain. “Now I see exactly which policy applies to which firewall, which rules are duplicated, expired, or unused, and get recommendations on the most effective way to reorder the most used rules,” says Moshka. With AlgoSec, Ormat has taken back control for its firewall policies and compliance requirements. “We’re managing our network security with much greater confidence,” Moshka says. “Add together the value of the time we save on a daily basis, and our improved compliance readiness, and we can clearly see that AlgoSec is delivering on our investment.” Schedule time with one of our experts

Learn about the essential firewall change management process. Understand how to implement, track, and control changes to your firewall configurations for optimal security and compliance. Firewall change management process: How does It work? For more than two decades, we have been utilizing network firewalls, yet we’re still struggling to properly manage them. In today’s world of information-driven businesses there’s a lot more that can go wrong— and a lot more to lose—when it comes to firewalls, firewall policy management and overall network security. Network environments have become so complex that a single firewall configuration change can take the entire network offline and expose your business to cyber-attacks. Are network firewalls adequately managed in today's complex environment? Improperly managed firewalls create some of the greatest business risks in any organization, however often you don’t find out about these risks until it is too late. Outdated firewall rules can allow unauthorized network access which result in cyber-attacks and gaps in compliance with industry and government regulations, while improper firewall rule changes can break business applications. Often, it is simple errors and oversights in the firewall change management process that cause problems, such as opening the network perimeter to security exploits and creating business continuity issues. Therefore, firewall configuration changes present a business challenge that you need to address properly once and for all. Why you need firewall change management processes Frequently asked questions about the firewall change management process How can I manage firewall changes? In IT, things are constantly in a state of flux. The firewall change management process is one of the biggest problems that businesses face, however, if you can manage the firewall configuration changes consistently over time, then you’ve already won half the battle. You’ll not only have a more secure network environment, but you will allow IT to serve its purpose by facilitating business rather than getting in the way. To manage firewall changes properly, it’s critical to have well-documented and reasonable firewall policies and procedures, combined with automation controls, such as AlgoSec’s security policy management solution, to help with enforcement and oversight. With AlgoSec you can automate the entire firewall change management process: Process firewall changes with zero-touch automation in minutes, instead of days – from planning and design through to deployment on the device – while maintaining full control and ensuring accuracy Leverage topology awareness to identify all the firewalls that are affected by a proposed change Proactively assess the impact of every firewall change before it is implemented to ensure security and continuous compliance with regulatory and corporate standards Automate rule recertification processes while also identifying firewall rules which are out of date, unused or unnecessary Reconcile change requests with the actual changes performed, to identify any changes that were performed “out of band” Automatically document the entire firewall change management workflow It is also important to analyze the impact firewall changes will have on the business. The ideal way is to utilize AlgoSec’s firewall policy management solution to test different scenarios before pushing them out to production. Once AlgoSec and your processes are integrated with your overall change management workflow, you can set your business up for success instead of creating a “wait and see” situation, and “hoping” everything works out. Simply put, if you don’t have the proper insight and predictability, then you’ll set up your business and yourself for failure. How can I assess the risk of my firewall policies? As networks become more complex and firewall rulesets continue to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to identify and quantify the risk caused by misconfigured or overly permissive firewall rules. A major contributor to firewall policy risks is lack of understanding of exactly what the firewall is doing at any given time. Even if traffic is flowing and applications are working, it doesn’t mean you don’t have unnecessary exposure. All firewall configuration changes either move your network towards better security or increased risks. Even the most experienced firewall administrator can make mistakes. Therefore, the best approach for minimizing firewall policy risks is to use automated firewall policy management tools to help find and fix the security risks before they get out of control. Automated firewall policy management tools, such as AlgoSec, employ widely-accepted firewall best practices and can analyze your current environment to highlight gaps and weaknesses. AlgoSec can also help tighten overly permissive rules (e.g., “ANY” service) by pinpointing the traffic that is flowing through any given rule. Combining policy analysis with the right tools allows you to be proactive with firewall security rather than finding out about the risks once it’s too late. How can I maintain optimized firewall rulesets? Maintaining a clean set of firewall rules is one of the most important functions in network security. Unwieldy rulesets are not just a technical nuisance—they also create business risks, such as open ports and unnecessary VPN tunnels, conflicting rules that create backdoor entry points, and an enormous amount of unnecessary complexity. In addition, bloated rulesets significantly complicate the auditing process, which often involves a review of each rule and its related business justification. This creates unnecessary costs for the business and wastes precious IT time. Examples of problematic firewall rules include unused rules, shadowed rules, expired rules, unattached objects and rules that are not ordered optimally (e.g. the most hit rule is at the bottom of the policy, creating unnecessary firewall overhead). Proactive and periodic checks can help eliminate rule base oversights and allow you to maintain a firewall environment that facilitates security rather than exposes weaknesses. To effectively manage your firewall rulesets, you need the right firewall administrator tools, such as AlgoSec, that will provide you with the visibility needed to see which rules can be eliminated or optimized, and what the implications are of removing or changing a rule. AlgoSec can also automate the change process, eliminating the need for time-consuming and inaccurate manual checks. You also need to ensure that you manage the rulesets on all firewalls. Picking and choosing certain firewalls is like limiting the scope of a security assessment to only part of your network. Your results will be limited, creating a serious false sense of security. It’s fine to focus on your most critical firewalls initially, but you need to address the rulesets across all firewalls eventually. Firewall change management FAQs AlgoSec’s Firewall Policy Management Solution supports the following use-cases: Auditing and Compliance Generate audit-ready reports in an instant! Covers all major regulations, including PCI, HIPAA, SOX, NERC and more. Business Continuity Now you can discover, securely provision, maintain, migrate and decommission connectivity for all business applications and accelerate service delivery helping to prevent outages. Micro-segmentation Define and implement your micro-segmentation strategy inside the datacenter, while ensuring that it doesn’t block critical business services. Risk Management Make sure that all firewall rule changes are optimally designed and implemented. Reduce risk and prevent misconfigurations, while ensuring security and compliance. Digital Transformation Discover, map and migrate application connectivity to the cloud with easy-to-use workflows, maximizing agility while ensuring security. DevOps Integrate security with your DevOps tools, practice, and methodology enabling faster deployment of your business applications into production. Additional use cases Select a size Are network firewalls adequately managed in today's complex environment? Why you need firewall change management processes Firewall change management FAQs Additional use cases Get the latest insights from the experts Network management & policy change automation Read more https://www.algosec.com/webinar/security-change-management-agility-vs-control/ Watch webinar Security policy change management solution Read more Choose a better way to manage your network

PARTNER SOLUTION BRIEF ALGOSEC AND F5 Download PDF Schedule time with one of our experts Schedule time with one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... phone By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue