Firewall Security Analysis Using Athena Firepac

Firewalls and Security Risks
Firewalls are dangerous! Let me explain, the primary function of firewalls is to provide a buffer from external attacks. Firewalls give people a feeling that their systems on internal networks are secure, which leads to a sense of complacency. But what they have actually done by putting a firewall is, put their systems at higher risk, by allowing access between internal and external networks. The proper configuration of firewalls, such that it provides maximum cover from security risks, demands significant network administration skills as well as level of understanding of organizational infrastructure. There are two immediate impacts on Firewall installation on an organization’s psyche. First of all there is an almost certain increase in amount of message traffic once the firewall is put in place. Secondly, people take more lenient approach towards the files or e-mails coming from unknown sources. These two can be a lethal combination. The very device that was meant to protect your network becomes the main culprit when systems are under attack from hackers.
Network Security Policies and Firewall
It is always good to have a well defined security policy before the firewall is installed and configured. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Not all responsible policy-makers would necessarily know how to state their policy requirements. The second problem comes in translating between the security policy and the firewall implementation. Since the policy maker and the firewall administrator are usually different individuals, they may be unclear on the precise impact of their own decisions on each other\'s domains. In addition, administering a firewall requires making frequent, small changes to the configuration, effectively changing the firewall\'s security policy dynamically. Making any changes to the firewall configuration, without fully understanding the implications of that change, puts the network at higher risk of being attacked.
What network administrators need is an effective tool that will, at click of a button, show them the impact of their rule change on the overall network policy. A tool that can perform what-if analysis of rule changes and show the impact on network security policy even before the configuration is modified. Athena FirePAC, from Athena Security Inc. is a product which precisely does that.
Reducing Security Risks using FirePAC
FirePAC can help network administrators in reducing the security risks in many ways. First of all FirePAC can inform network administrators about the potential impact of change on their security policy, without actually making any changes to the firewall configuration. Secondly FirePAC provides them comprehensive risk analysis report, which pin-point the security risks, clearly identified on the scale of High, Medium and Low. This report is generated based on over 100 security checks derived from industry standard network security specifications.

Written by MS.LOCALE

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