Firewalls have been at the core of cyber defense efforts for every company in any size and vertical. Separating trusted networks from unauthorized access, firewall infrastructures define access polices across the whole network. Hence, an effective policy and rule management is the single most critical factor in keeping networks safe against ever increasing cyber threats and making sure business operations run uninterruptedly.
Firewall policy and rule management has always been challenging. Networks got larger and more interconnected. Speed of change in business requirements increased. Application driven digitalization and adoption of cloud added new complexities. Network Security teams struggle to keep up with the change requests and existing automation solutions fall short to help them effectively.
Despite it is overwhelming, ……Policy change operations play a key role in ensuring uninterrupted business operations with minimized cyber risk. Allowing access to a new business application, revoking or changing an access right, blocking a potentially malicious traffic are some of the reasons why policy changes are applied. On the flip side, despite its critical importance for continuity and security, every policy change operation carries a down time risk. One of the most widely adopted method to avert this risk is to use “change windows” whereby in most of the cases daily, weekly and bi-weekly night works are planned. On the other hand, as the businesses go digital and global at the same time, using change windows is neither enough to keep up with the requirements nor fully serves the purpose.
Due to this severe policy change automation need look for solutions that offers automation……