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Do I Need to Be Concerned About These Firewall Log Entries?

Do I Need to Be Concerned About These Firewall Log Entries? (PDF, 1.61MB)Published: 15 Jan, 2002
Created by:
Arvid Soderberg

I'm working in a large health care institution that operates a hospital, a day surgery center, nursing homes, urgent care and occupational medicine facilities, and medical office buildings on four campuses, two community health clinics, as well as eight home health agencies in surrounding counties. We have installed a firewall to segregate the main campus network, a Frame Relay network connecting remote locations, wireless network implementations, a remote access concentrator used for ISDN and analog remote connections, and an Internet connection. The firewall implemented is a Nokia IP-440 running Checkpoint's VPN-1 version 4.1 software. Although we probably don't need to be concerned about industrial espionage from competitors as some businesses do, we do have patient information to keep confidential. This has always been a priority, but as the recording media change from paper to electronic, additional methods are needed to maintain confidentiality. With the coming HIPAA regulations, the cost of failing to maintain confidentiality will also increase. In this paper, I'll highlight certain entries from the firewall log file and attempt to determine the level of concern that should be associated with them.