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Assessing the Value of Network Segmentation from a Business Application Perspective 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... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

The joint offering helps enterprises tighten their security posture, effectively mitigate Ransomware and other Cyberattacks and ensure long-term sustainability Deloitte and AlgoSec Partner to Establish a Joint Network Protection Transformation Solution for Enterprises The joint offering helps enterprises tighten their security posture, effectively mitigate Ransomware and other Cyberattacks and ensure long-term sustainability November 9, 2020 Speak to one of our experts RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J., November 9, 2020 – The EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE) of Deloitte (located in Portugal) and AlgoSec , the leading provider of business-driven network security management solutions, have entered into an alliance to establish a network protection transformation offer to safeguard clients against complex threats and attacks. The combined team will deliver, operate, and maintain a network protection offer with joint functions managed between Deloitte and AlgoSec. Deloitte TEE will focus on delivering business process transformation capabilities, business and technical advisory and project management to ensure reliability and sustainability on the proposed capabilities, while AlgoSec will provide technical support to customize, deploy and operate the tool to accelerate and automate the network security management, and ensure the offer is aligned with the business’ requirements. The Deloitte and AlgoSec joint offering provides a business-centric approach to network security management across the entire hybrid and multi-vendor environment. The solution offers comprehensive visibility across the network security environment and business applications, agile and secure policy change management via zero touch automation, and continuous compliance assurance. The offering also includes a Network Security Hardening Service, which begins to understand the Client’s network level of exposure, current vulnerabilities and the potential impact of network threats, before performing a transformation strategy to strengthen current capabilities and remediate network risks and vulnerabilities, followed by a Network Security Managed Service to monitor and guarantee long-term sustainability. Deloitte TEE will also become a reselling partner to support AlgoSec in the global market, using a structured offer model with advantages for the partnership and the client. Jade Kahn, AlgoSec CMO said: “Network protection should be a priority for companies to mitigate the damage caused by an increasing number of complex cyber threats. With an appropriate strategy in place, they can identify and contain threats before they are able to move freely across the network. We look forward to working alongside Deloitte and delivering value to its clients.” Pedro Tavares, Partner of Deloitte Portugal and responsible for the EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE): “TEE focus is on delivering high value telecoms engineering consultancy services towards our customers, and under the ongoing digitalization wave and in the advent of 5G, setting up a Network Protection offer to ensure that this improvement in the connectivity, communication and user experience do not bring substantial business risks is a key stepping stone towards this strategy. We expect with this combined offer to support our clients in improving their network security, mitigating their network risks and enhancing their key Capabilities to ensure a sustainable transformation of their business”. About AlgoSec The leading provider of business-driven network security management solutions, AlgoSec helps the world’s largest organizations align security with their mission-critical business processes. With AlgoSec, users can discover, map and migrate business application connectivity, proactively analyze risk from the business perspective, tie cyber-attacks to business processes and intelligently automate network security changes with zero touch – across their cloud, SDN and on-premise networks. Over 1,800 enterprises, including 20 of the Fortune 50, have utilized AlgoSec’s solutions to make their organizations more agile, more secure and more compliant – all the time. Since 2005, AlgoSec has shown its commitment to customer satisfaction with the industry’s only money-back guarantee . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Media Contacts:Tsippi Dach [email protected] Craig Coward Context Public [email protected] +44 (0)1625 511 966 Olga Neves Media Relations & External CommunicationsDeloitte PortugalTlm: (+351) 918 985 [email protected] About Deloitte Deloitte, us, we and our refer to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of each other. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more.Deloitte is a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services. Our global network of member firms and related entities in more than 150 countries and territories (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”) serves four out of five Fortune Global 500® companies. Learn how Deloitte’s more than 330,000 people make an impact that matters at www.deloitte.com . About EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE) The EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE) is an operational area specialized in telecom engineering services, managed by Deloitte Portugal, that offers engineering services for mobile, fixed and convergent telecom networks, service platforms and operating support systems (“OSS”) for the Europe, Middle East, Africa region (“EMEA”).

Protecting cloud-based applications and workloads requires robust security solutions such as CSPM, CIEM and CWPP. CNAPP tries to answer... Cloud Security CSPM vs. CNAPP: Which Solution to Choose? Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich 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 11/24/22 Published Protecting cloud-based applications and workloads requires robust security solutions such as CSPM, CIEM and CWPP. CNAPP tries to answer all 3 but how do you know which solution is right for your specific organization? Ava Chawla, AlgoSec’s Global Head of Cloud Security unravels the differences between them and shares her expert opinion on the solution that offers the most value for organizations. What is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)? A CSPM tool monitors the logs and configuration files of the services you use in your cloud environment. It will scan the entire cloud environment to detect and prevent misconfiguration errors. This is important because configurations in the cloud happen quickly and just as quickly introduce new threats into the environment. For robust ongoing protection, you need to monitor the environment continuously and automatically. Here’s where CSPM comes in. The best CSPM solutions implement configuration best practices and automatically initiate corrective actions to remove risks, thus improving cloud security, ensuring adherence to compliance policies, and reducing the likelihood of breaches. Additionally, they are agentless, do not require long configuration, and don’t add to your cloud bills by utilizing additional cloud resources. What is Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)? In cloud environments, identity goes beyond users and groups. It also plays a vital role in managing all the resources and services that need to access data. All these accesses happen very quickly and constitute a complex web of interactions. It’s crucial to know when and between whom these interactions occur to ensure that only legitimate resources can access or modify data. But as your cloud resources increase, the complexity of entitlements also grows. It’s not easy to keep track of these entitlements or to maintain the security-focused principle of least privilege (PoLP). CIEM tools are specialized identity-centric solutions to manage cloud access risk and govern entitlements in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With CIEM, you can manage entitlements across all your cloud resources and maintain PoLP to mitigate the risk created by granting excessive permissions to cloud resources. What is a Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)? CWPP solutions manage cloud applications and workloads. They can reach back into on- prem environments and thus effectively detect and prevent security problems like malware and vulnerabilities across the entire hybrid landscape. CWPP solutions can scale automatically and support your organization as your cloud environment grows or changes. What is a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)? Each of these solutions are geared towards a specific area of cloud security. CSPM prevents misconfiguration errors, CIEM platforms manage cloud access risks, and CWPP protects your assets and workloads. But what if you want a single solution that can completely manage the security of your cloud environment? Try a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform . CNAPP solutions combine security posture management, workload protection, and entitlement management into one single platform to provide comprehensive, holistic security across multi-cloud environments. Thus, you can protect your entire cloud estate with one solution instead of having to implement and manage multiple point solutions. Another advantage of a CNAPP tool is that it will enable you to “shift left”. Thus, you can not only secure applications in production environments, but also manage the runtime and DevOps aspects of security. For this reason, these platforms are aimed at both security professionals and DevOps practitioners. Conclusion and Next Steps A CNAPP solution is the most comprehensive solution. However, in today’s market there is no one tool that truly covers all the functionalities that CNAPP promises. Therefore, each organization should choose the solution that fits its immediate needs, including taking other considerations into account such as the skill level and the maturity of its cloud adoption. One important thing to remember: Regardless of the solution you choose, make sure it’s agentless. Agentless is important in today’s cloud security because agent-based solutions are hard to manage, expensive, and intrusive. If you’re looking for a modern agentless CSPM with container protection to safeguard your cloud-based application and workload data, then Prevasio might be the best option for you. 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* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

A Decoy Network The strategy behind Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ has been used by the military, sports teams, and pretty much anyone looking... Cyber Attacks & Incident Response How to Use Decoy Deception for Network Protection Matthew Pascucci 2 min read Matthew Pascucci 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 6/30/15 Published A Decoy Network The strategy behind Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ has been used by the military, sports teams, and pretty much anyone looking for a strategic edge against their foes. As Sun Tzu says “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” Sun Tzu understood that to gain an advantage on your opponent you need to catch him off guard, make him believe you’re something you’re not, so that you can leverage this opportunity to your advantage. As security practitioners we should all supplement our security practices with this timed and tested decoy technique against cyber attackers. There are a few technologies that can be used as decoys, and two of the most common are honeypots and false decoy accounts: A honeypot is a specially designed piece of software that mimics another system, normally with vulnerable services that aren’t really vulnerable, in order to attract the attention of an attacker as they’re sneaking through your network. Decoy accounts are created in order to check if someone is attempting to log into them. When an attempt is made security experts can then investigate the attackers’ techniques and strategies, without being detected or any data being compromised. Design the right decoy But before actually setting up either of these two techniques you first need to think about how to design the decoy in a way that will be believable. These decoy systems shouldn’t be overtly obvious, yet they need to entice the hacker so that he can’t pass up the opportunity. So think like an attacker: What would an attacker do first when gaining access to a network? How would he exploit a system? Will they install malware? Will they perform a recon scan looking for pivot points? Figuring out what your opponent will do once they’ve gained access to your network is the key to building attractive decoy systems and effective preventive measures. Place it in plain sight You also need to figure out the right place for your decoys. You want to install decoys into your network around areas of high value, as well as systems that are not properly monitored with other security technologies. They should be hiding in plain sight and mimicking the systems or accounts that they’re living next to. This means running similar services, have hostnames that fall in line with your syntax, running on the same operating systems (one exception is decoys running a few exploitable services to entice the attacker). The goes the same for accounts that you’ve seeded in applications or authentication services. We decided that in addition to family photos, it was time to focus on couples photoshoot ! Last fall we aired our popular City Photoshoot Tips & Ideas and as a result, gave you TONS of ideas and inspiration. And last but not least, you need to find a way to discretely publicize your applications or accounts in order to attract the attacker. Then, when an attacker tries to log in to the decoy applications or accounts (which should be disabled) you should immediately and automatically start tracking and investigating the attack path. Watch and learn Another important point to make is that once a breach attempt has been made you shouldn’t immediately cut off the account. You might want to watch the hacker for a period of time to see what else that he might access on the network. Many times tracking their actions over a period of time will give you a lot more actionable information that will ultimately help you create a far more secure perimeter. Think of it as a plainclothes police officer following a known criminal. Many times the police will follow a criminal to see if he will lead them toward more information about their activities before making an arrest. Use the same techniques. If an attacker trips over a few of carefully laid traps, it’s possible that he’s just starting to poke around your network. It’s up to you, while you have the upper hand, to determine if you start remediation or continue to guide them under your watchful eye. 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* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

Hybrid cloud computing enables organizations to deploy sensitive workloads on-premise or in a private cloud, while hosting less... DevSecOps Why organizations need to embrace new thinking in how they tackle hybrid cloud security challenges Prof. Avishai Wool 2 min read Prof. Avishai Wool 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 10/9/22 Published Hybrid cloud computing enables organizations to deploy sensitive workloads on-premise or in a private cloud, while hosting less business-critical resources on public clouds. But despite its many benefits, the hybrid environment also creates security concerns. AlgoSec’s co-founder and CTO, Prof. Avishai Wool shares his expert insights on these concerns and offers best practices to boost hybrid cloud security. Hybrid cloud computing combines on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and one or more public clouds. Going hybrid provides businesses with enhanced flexibility, agility, cost savings, and scalability to innovate, grow, and gain a competitive advantage. So, how can you simplify and strengthen security operations in the hybrid cloud? It all starts with visibility – you still can’t protect what you can’t see To protect their entire hybrid infrastructure, applications, workloads, and data, security teams need to know what these assets are and where they reside. They also need to see the entire hybrid estate and not just the individual elements. However, complete visibility is a serious hybrid cloud security challenge. Hybrid environments are highly complex, which can create security blind spots, which then prevent teams from identifying, evaluating, and most importantly, mitigating risk. Another hybrid cloud security concern is that you cannot implement a fragmented security approach to control the entire network. With thousands of integrated and inter-dependent resources and data flowing between them, vulnerabilities crop up, increasing the risk of cyberattacks or breaches. For complete hybrid cloud security, you need a holistic approach that can help you control the entire network. Is DevSecOps the panacea? Not quite In many organizations, DevSecOps teams manage cloud security because they have visibility into what’s happening inside the cloud. However, in the hybrid cloud, many applications have servers or clients existing outside the cloud, which DevSecOps may not have visibility into. Also, the protection of data flowing into and out of the cloud is not always under their remit. To make up for these gaps, other teams are required to manage security operations and minimize hybrid cloud risks. These additional processes and team members must be coordinated to ensure continuous security across the entire hybrid network environment. But this is easier said than done. Using IaC to balance automation with oversight is key, but here’s why you shouldn’t solely rely on it Infrastructure as code (IaC) will help you automatically deploy security controls in the hybrid cloud to prevent misconfiguration errors, non-compliance, and violations while in the production stage and pre application testing. With IaC-based security, you can define security best practices in template files, which will minimize risks and enhance your security posture. But there’s an inherent risk in putting all your eggs in the automation and IaC basket. Due to the fact that all the controls are on the operational side, it can create serious hybrid cloud security issues. And without human attention and action, vulnerabilities may remain unaddressed and open the door to cyberattacks. Since security professionals who are not on the operational side must oversee the cloud environment, it could easily open the door to miscommunication and human errors – a very costly proposition for organizations. For this very reason, you should also implement a process to regularly deploy automatic updates without requiring time-consuming approvals that slow down workflows and weaken security. Strive for 95% automated changes and only involve a person for the remaining 5% that requires human input. Hybrid cloud security best practices – start early, start strong When migrating from on-prem to the cloud, you can choose a greenfield migration or a lift-and-shift migration. Greenfield means rolling out a brand-new application. In this case, ensure that security considerations are “baked in” from the beginning and across all processes. This “shift left” approach helps build an environment that’s secure from the get-go. This ensures that all team members adhere to a unified set of security policy rules to minimize vulnerabilities and reduce security risks within the hybrid cloud environment. If you lift-and-shift on-prem applications to the cloud, note any security assumptions made when they were designed. This is important because they were not built for the cloud and may incorporate protocols that increase security risks. Next, implement appropriate measures during migration planning. For example, implement an Application Load Balancer if applications leverage plaintext protocols, and use sidecars to encrypt applications without having to modify the original codebase. You can also leverage hybrid cloud security solutions to detect and mitigate security problems in real-time. Matching your cloud security with application structure is no longer optional Before moving to a hybrid cloud, map the business logic, application structure, and application ownership into the hybrid cloud estate’s networking structure. To simplify this process, here are some tried and proven ways to consider. Break up your environment into a virtual private cloud (VPC) or virtual network. With the VPC, you can monitor connections, screen traffic, create multiple subnets, and also restrict instance access to improve security posture. Use networking constructs to segregate applications into different functional and networking areas in the cloud. This way, you can deploy network controls to segment your cloud estate and ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive data and resources. Tag all resources based on their operating system, business unit, and geographical area. Tags with descriptive metadata can help to identify resources. They also establish ownership and accountability, provide visibility into cloud consumption, and help with the deployment of security policies. Conclusion In today’s fast-paced business environment, hybrid cloud computing can benefit your organization in many ways. But to capture these benefits, you should make an effort to boost hybrid cloud security. Incorporate the best practices discussed here to improve security and take full advantage of your hybrid environment. To learn more about hybrid cloud security, listen to our Lessons in Cybersecurity podcast episode or head to our hybrid cloud resource hub here . 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* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

Boost Cisco ACI adoption with AlgoSec. Simplify security management, enhance visibility, and streamline policy automation for your ACI environment. Increasing Cisco ACI adoption with AlgoSec ---- ------- Schedule a Demo Select a size ----- Get the latest insights from the experts Choose a better way to manage your network

The Case and Criteria for Application-Centric Security Policy Management 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... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

Ensure your network security is up to par with a comprehensive firewall audit checklist. Review and optimize security policy rules to prevent vulnerabilities. Firewall audit checklist for security policy rules review Ensuring continuous compliance More regulations and standards relating to information security, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and ISO 27001, have forced enterprises to put more emphasis—in terms of time and money—on compliance and the regular and ad hoc auditing of security policies and controls. While regulatory and internal audits cover a broad range of security checks, the firewall is featured prominently since it is the first and main line of defense between the public and the corporate network. The number of enterprises that are not affected by regulations is shrinking. But even if you do not have to comply with specific government or industrial regulations and security standards, it is now commonplace to conduct regular, thorough audits of your firewalls. Not only do these audits ensure that your firewall configurations and rules meet the proper requirements of external regulations or internal security policy, but these audits can also play a critical role in reducing risk and actually improve firewall performance by optimizing the firewall rule base. In today’s complex, multi-vendor network environments, typically including tens or hundreds of firewalls running thousands of rules, completed a manual security audit now borders on the impossible. Conducting the audit process manually, firewall administrators must rely on their own experience and expertise—which can vary greatly across organizations—to determine if a given firewall rule should or should not be included in the configuration file. Furthermore, documentation of current rules and their evolution of changes is usually lacking. The time and resources required to find, organize and pour through all of the firewall rules to determine the level of compliance significantly impacts IT staff. As networks grow in complexity, auditing becomes more cumbersome. Manual processes cannot keep up. Automating the firewall audit process is crucial as compliance must be continuous, not simply at a point in time. The firewall audit process is arduous. Each new rule must pre-analyzed and simulated before it can be implemented. A full and accurate audit log of each change must be maintained. Today’s security staffs now find that being audit-ready without automation is impractical if not virtually impossible. It’s time to look to automation along with the establishment of auditing best practices to maintain continuous compliance. Below, we share a proven checklist of six best practices for a firewall audits based on AlgoSec’s extensive experience in consulting with some of the largest global organizations and auditors who deal with firewall audit, optimization and change management processes and procedures. While this is not an exhaustive list that every organization must follow, it provides guidance on some critical areas to cover when conducting a firewall audit. FIGURE 1: Overview of the Recommended Firewall Audit Process Get a Demo Schedule a Demo Gather key information prior to starting the audit An audit has little chance of success without visibility into the network, including software, hardware, policies and risks. The following are examples of the key information required to plan the audit work: Copies of relevant security policies Access to firewall logs that can be analyzed against the firewall rule base to understand which rules are actually being used An accurate diagram of the current network and firewall topologies Reports and documents from previous audits, including firewall rules, objects and policy revisions Identification of all Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Virtual Private Networks (VPN) All relevant firewall vendor information including OS version, latest patches and default configuration Understanding all the key servers and information repositories in the network and the value of each Once you have gathered this information, how are you going to aggregate it and storing it? Trying to track compliance on spreadsheets is a surefire way to make the audit process painful, tedious and time-consuming. Instead of spreadsheets, the auditor needs to document, store and consolidate this vital information in a way that enables collaboration with IT counterparts. With this convenience access, auditors you can start reviewing policies and procedures and tracking their effectiveness in terms of compliance, operational efficiency and risk mitigation. Schedule a Demo Review the change management process A good change management process is essential to ensure proper execution and traceability of firewall changes as well as for sustainability over time to ensure compliance continuously. Poor documentation of changes, including why each change is needed, who authorized the change, etc. and poor validation of the impact on the network of each change are two of the most common problems when it comes to change control. Review the procedures for rule-base change management. Just a few key questions to review include:Are requested changes going through proper approvals? Are changes being implemented by authorized personnel? Are changes being tested? Are changes being documented per regulatory and/ or internal policy requirements? Each rule should have a comment that includes the change ID of the request and the name/initials of the person who implemented the change. Is there an expiration date for the change? Determine if there is a formal and controlled process in place to request, review, approve and implement firewall changes. This process should include at least the following:Business purpose for a change request Duration (time period) for new/modified rule Assessment of the potential risks associated with the new/modified rule Formal approvals for new/modified rule Assignment to proper administrator for implementation Verification that change has been tested and implemented correctly Determine whether all of the changes have been authorized and flag unauthorized rule changes for further investigation. Determine if real-time monitoring of changes to a firewall are enabled and if access to rul Schedule a Demo Audit the firewall’s physical and OS security It is important to be certain as to each firewall’s physical and software security to protect against the most fundamental types of cyberattack. Ensure that firewall and management servers are physically secured with controlled access. Ensure that there is a current list of authorized personnel permitted to access the firewall server rooms. Verify that all appropriate vendor patches and updates have been applied. Ensure that the operating system passes common hardening checklists. Review the procedures used for device administration. Schedule a Demo Cleanup and optimize the rule base Removing firewall clutter and optimizing the rule base can greatly improve IT productivity and firewall performance. Additionally, optimizing firewall rules can significantly reduce a lot of unnecessary overhead in the audit process. Delete covered rules that are effectively useless. Delete or disable expired and unused rules and objects. Identify disabled, time-inactive and unused rules that are candidates for removal. Evaluate the order of firewall rules for effectiveness and performance. Remove unused connections, including source/ destination/service routes, that are not in use. Detect similar rules that can be consolidated into a single rule. Identify overly permissive rules by analyzing the actual policy usage against firewall logs. Tune these rules as appropriate for policy and actual use scenarios. Analyze VPN parameters to identify unused users, unattached users, expired users, users about to expire, unused groups, unattached groups and expired groups. Enforce object-naming conventions. Document rules, objects and policy revisions for future reference. Schedule a Demo Conduct a risk assessment and remediate issues Essential for any firewall audit, a comprehensive risk assessment will identify risky rules and ensure that rules are compliant with internal policies and relevant standards and regulations. Identify any and all potentially “risky” rules, based on industry standards and best practices, and prioritize them by severity. What is “risky” can be different for each organization depending on the network and the level of acceptable risk, but there are many frameworks and standards you can leverage that provide a good reference point. A few things to look for and validate include: Are there firewall rules that violate your corporate security policy? Are there any firewall rules with “ANY” in the source, destination, service/protocol, application or user fields, and with a permissive action? Are there rules that allow risky services from your DMZ to your internal network? Are there rules that allow risky services inbound from the Internet? Are there rules that allow risky services outbound to the Internet? Are there rules that allow direct traffic from the Internet to the internal network (not the DMZ)? Are there any rules that allow traffic from the Internet to sensitive servers, networks, devices or databases? Analyze firewall rules and configurations against relevant regulatory and/or industry standards such as PCI-DSS, SOX, ISO 27001, NERC CIP, Basel-II, FISMA and J-SOX, as well as corporate policies that define baseline hardware and software configurations to which devices must adhere (See Figure 4 on page 9). Document and assign an action plan for remediation of risks and compliance exceptions found in risk analysis. Verify that remediation efforts and any rule changes have been completed correctly. Track and document that remediation efforts are completed. Schedule a Demo Ongoing audits Upon successful firewall and security device auditing, verifying secure configuration, proper steps must be put in place to ensure continuous compliance. Ensure that a process is established for continuous auditing of firewalls. Consider replacing error-prone manual tasks with automated analysis and reporting. Ensure that all audit procedures are properly documented, providing a complete audit trail of all firewall management activities. Make sure that a robust firewall-change workflow is in place to sustain compliance over time.This repeats Audit Checklist item #2 because is necessary to ensure continuous compliance, i.e., compliance might be achieved now, but in a month, the organization might once again be out of compliance. Ensure that there is an alerting system in place for significant events or activities, such as changes in certain rules or the discovery of a new, high severity risk in the policy. Schedule a Demo Automating firewall compliance audits with AlgoSec When it comes to compliance, the firewall policy management solution must have the breadth and depth to automatically generate detailed reports for multiple regulations and standards. It also must support multiple firewalls and related security devices. By combining this firewall audit checklist with the AlgoSec Security Management Solution, organizations can significantly improve their security posture and reduce the pain of ensuring compliance with regulations, industry standards and corporate policies. Furthermore, they can ensure compliance continuously without spending significant resources wasting time and effort on complex security policies on a regular basis. Let’s go back through the checklist and look at a few examples of how AlgoSec can help. Gain visibility of network policies and their changes AlgoSec enables you to gather the key information needed to start the audit process. By generating a dynamic, interactive network map AlgoSec visualizes and helps you analyze complex networks. (See Figure 2.) You can view routing tables and effectively detect interfaces, subnets and zones. Additionally, AlgoSec provides you with visibility of all changes to your network security policies in real-time and creates detailed firewall audit reports to help approvers make informed decisions about changes that affect risk or compliance levels. Lastly, AlgoSec discovers all the business applications that run on your network and each of their associated connectivity flows. FIGURE 2: AlgoSec provides network topology awareness with a map that provides visibility of all firewalls and routers including all relevant interfaces, subnets and zones, and the ability to drill down to specific information about each device. Understand the firewall changes in your network and automate the process AlgoSec intelligently automates the security-policy change workflow, dramatically cutting the time required to process firewall changes, increasing accuracy and accountability, enforcing compliance and mitigating risk. In addition, AlgoSec provides flexible workflows and templates to help you manage change requests and tailor processes to your business needs. Clean up and optimize your rule base AlgoSec enables you to optimize and clean up cluttered policies with actionable recommendations to: Consolidate similar rules. Discover and remove unused rules and objects (See Figure 3). Identify and remove shadowed, duplicate, and expired rules. Reorder rules for optimal firewall performance while retaining policy logic. Tighten overly permissive rules based on actual usage patterns. Not only does this help you improve the performance and extend the life of your firewalls, it also saves time when it comes to troubleshooting issues and IT audits. Plus, it creates a time savings during rule recertification, as each application is associated with multiple connectivity needs requiring multiple firewall rules. FIGURE 3: Unused rules that AlgoSec has identified for removal. Conduct a risk assessment and remediate issues AlgoSec enables you to instantly discover and prioritize all risks and potentially risky rules in the firewall policy, leveraging the largest risk knowledgebase available. The knowledgebase includes industry regulations, best practices and customizable corporate security policies. AlgoSec assigns and tracks a security rating for each device and group of devices to help you to quickly pinpoint devices that require attention and to measure the effectiveness of a security policy over time. FIGURE 4: AlgoSec identifies and prioritizes risky rules based on industry standards and frameworks and provides detailed information of source, destination, service, as well as user and application when analyzing next-generation firewalls. Out-of-the-box compliance reports AlgoSec ensures continuous compliance and instantly provides you with a view of your firewall compliance status by automatically generating reports for industry regulations, including Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), GDPR, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (J-SOX, also known as Japan-SOX), North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP), and International Organization for Standardization (ISO 20071). If the network security policy doesn’t adhere to regulatory or corporate standards, the reports identify the exact rules and devices that cause gaps in compliance. A single report provides visibility into risk and compliance associated with a group of devices. FIGURE 5: PCI DSS firewall compliance report automatically generated by AlgoSec. Schedule a Demo Conclusion Ensuring and proving compliance typically require significant organizational resources and budget. With the growing litany of regulations, the cost and time involved in the audit process is increasing rapidly. Armed with the firewall audit checklist and with the AlgoSec security policy management solution you can: Reduce the time required for an audit — Manual reviews can take a significant amount of time to produce a report for each firewall in the network. AlgoSec aggregates data across a defined group of firewalls and devices for a unified compliance view, doing away with running reports for each device, thereby saving a tremendous amount of time and effort that is wasted on collating individual device reports. AlgoSec enables you to produce a report in minutes, reducing time and effort by as much as 80%. Improve compliance while reducing costs — As the auditor’s time to gather pertinent information and analyze the network security status is reduced, the total cost of the audit decreases substantially. AlgoSec facilitates the remediation of non-compliant items by providing actionable information that further reduces the time to re- establish a compliant state. Schedule a Demo Select a size Ensuring continuous compliance Gather key information prior to starting the audit Review the change management process Audit the firewall’s physical and OS security Cleanup and optimize the rule base Conduct a risk assessment and remediate issues Ongoing audits Automating firewall compliance audits with AlgoSec Conclusion Get the latest insights from the experts Choose a better way to manage your network

Empower your cloud security posture with AlgoSec s Prevasio CSPM Achieve compliance and peace of mind Dive deeper now Cloud security posture management (CSPM) Real-time monitoring for comprehensive cloud security Schedule a demo Watch a video Watch a video Remove blind spots and take control of your multi-cloud Uncover all services and resources within your multi-cloud environment. Supporting Amazon AWS , Microsoft Azure and Google GCP, Prevasio scans a comprehensive range of asset classes such as Lambda functions, S3 buckets, Azure VMs and 60 other cloud service assets. Prioritize risks and misconfigurations to focus on what's critical Thousands of alerts are generated by over 600 CSPM alert types at the asset, service and aggregated levels. Build a prioritized risk list according to CIS Benchmarks to make sense of the deluge of alerts and misconfigurations. Confidently meet compliance requirements With Prevasio , compliance posture is constantly being assessed through continuous monitoring of cloud assets. Organizations can prioritize data security and adhere to regulatory frameworks such as PCI-DSS and HIPAA . Close the loop on your risk mitigation through Jira integration Turn Prevasio CSPM alerts into Jira tasks to ensure a streamlined approach to risk mitigation. Empower collaborative efforts between teams to address and resolve security posture issues. Get the latest insights from the experts What is a Cloud Security Assessment? Read blog Shaping tomorrow: Leading the way in cloud security Read blog CSPM importance for CISOs. What security issues can be prevented\defended with CSPM? Read blog Schedule time and secure your cloud Schedule time and secure your cloud Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call