Centralized Tracking and Risk Analysis of 3rd Party Firewall Connections

Firewall rules are a reflection of a company's security policies, business goals, and organizational changes. Enterprises must perform frequent audits to confirm that firewall rules align with strategic or operating changes. Managing the technical risks of a firewall must also be coordinated with an effort to effectively present these risks to management. In GIAC Enterprises, security leaders and auditors prioritized the need for individual business units to validate their existing external firewall connections. The goal of this case study was to simplify the firewall ruleset validation process by creating a central database of rulesets that enables reporting on existing vendor connections. The overall impact included compliance with auditing requirements, a more robust risk assessment of firewall rulesets, and centralized visibility bringing about management response.