Companies employ firewalls as the technological entries and exits to their networks and compartmentalise their internal networks and systems.
Do you feel comfortable with the firewall security in your company? Your organization network contains a large amount of important data, whose loss may cripple the organization.
The success of any business and operation depends on the effectiveness of its firewall. There can be great stress and difficulty in troubleshooting firewall-related problems. Because of this, making firewall changes should be carefully managed since one wrong move can cause a business process to fail or potentially harm an organisation’s reputation.
Here are six effective ways to improve your company’s firewalls.
Have an official system for submitting firewall requests
It is not recommended that firewall requests or changes be made haphazardly through emails, instant messages, voicemails, verbal requests, or in any other manner. You’ll have trouble keeping track, they might not always be taken care of quickly, and there’s a high possibility of inappropriate requests. Alternatively, requests should be sent via an official channel such as helpdesk tickets, Salesforce cases, or emails to specialized groups or Outlook public folders. As a result, requests can be handled in a first-come-first-served manner and tracked over time.
This method will help you evaluate the frequency of requests from individuals or organizations and define the daily workload and develop a standard routine. In an incident caused by human error or ignorance, you may refer back to requests.
Block traffic and control user access
Default blocking of all network traffic is recommended. Let only certain services use specific traffic. Having this control over your network can prevent security breaches from occurring and allow you to track who can access it.
Firewalls are your first line of defence against threats, so no one should be allowed to alter their configuration. It is essential to restrict access to firewall configuration changes to authorized administrators. Additionally, all changes made by authorized administrators must be recorded in the log for auditing and compliance purposes. This way, any unwarranted modifications to a configuration are detected, and the configuration can be restored.
There is also an option to create individual user profiles so that IT staff can access different levels of information as needed. Monitoring firewall logs regularly are vital for uncovering any unauthorized intrusions into firewalls.
Count on redundancy
An effective firewall review process should include two people, especially in critical environments. To ensure compliance with the request, the draft changes are checked by a second individual before saving. This allows them to detect any errors before they are implemented.
This does not mean that one individual has to watch the other work. You can save changes to firewall software such as Checkpoint and then push out those policies to become active. The review process can occur between saving settings and enacting them when you follow the procedure outlined above and use a similar type of firewall.
As a precaution, a backup firewall should also be in place wherever possible so that if one device fails or has a connection issue, the other device can take over. Ideally, this should be configured to do this automatically (for example, if the primary firewall stops responding for 60 seconds or more, the secondary device should take over automatically) rather than by manual intervention to allow issues to be resolved more efficiently.
Your network firewall should be optimized
Defining and optimizing firewall rules is critical to achieving the desired security results. Your network security can benefit from cleaning up firewall rules that contain unnecessary clutter.
If the firewall configuration rules are redundant, duplicated, or bloated, they become complex and ineffective. To have a set of clear guidelines that are more easily followed, such restrictions must be abandoned.
Here are the steps you must take to clean your firewall rule:
- Eliminate redundant and duplicate rules that slow down firewall performance since they require the firewall to execute more rules than it needs to.
- Get rid of rules that are out of date or no longer needed. The problem with these is that they complicate firewall management, and they may even compromise the security of your network if they are not updated regularly.
- Shadow rules that aren’t essential should be deleted. Otherwise, critical rules are likely to be neglected.
- It is imperative to eliminate conflicting rules.
- The rules must be reviewed regularly to remove any errors or inaccuracies that will cause malfunctions.
Make sure your firewall software is updated regularly
Firewall vendors usually release regular software updates. During the updates, minor changes to the software are made to address any new security threats.
To ensure the security of your network and that there are no vulnerabilities in the system, you should update your firewall software frequently. It is vital to keep your firewall software up-to-date from time to time.
Audit the firewall security regularly
In addition to ensuring that the firewall rules are compliant with the organization’s security policies, security audits are also necessary to certify network security.
Changing firewall configurations without authorization can result in noncompliance. To ensure that no unauthorized changes have been made, IT security staff and administrators should conduct regular audits.
As a result, you will also be aware of any changes made to your firewall and warned against any possible risks. It is essential for security audits to be conducted when firewalls are installed, migrated or when firewall configuration changes are made in bulk.
Before You Go
Your company’s firewall can be strengthened with these tips, but they won’t prevent it from being penetrated entirely when it comes to protecting sensitive company data. If you need unsurpassed protection, we suggest contacting internet security professionals such as Firewall Technical.
The firewall protection we provide is tailored for the modern age according to the latest trends in hacking and malware. So why would you want anything less than complete protection for your business?