Policy optimiser closes costly ‘access gap’

The Policy Optimizer module, used in concert with FireMon Security Manager, bridges a critical gap existing between today's network security teams and other involved officials -- including enterprise security management, line-of-business, audit/compliance and IT risk management -- enabling organizations to strengthen their overall security posture by quickly and effectively adapting network security device policies.

Leveraging Policy Optimizer, FireMon customers gain a centralized workflow approach for improving and reducing the complexity of device rules and policies by isolating and modifying any potentially problematic network access. By allowing network security teams to identify any problematic rules or policies, then partner directly with internal stakeholders to alter or eliminate risky access, significant benefits are appreciated, enterprise-wide.

Using traditional methods, initial business requirements for long-standing network access policies and associated rules are often infrequently reviewed and left in place for years, creating latent security gaps, vulnerability exposure and unseen risks. In addition to improving protection to prevent potential network compromise, many of today's enterprise organizations must maintain continuous compliance with industry standards including PCI DSS, requiring frequent and detailed recertification of all access management policies.

In a recent report conducted by the Ponemon Institute, and commissioned by FireMon, 60 percent of organizations surveyed indicated that they perform infrequent manual auditing of such access policies, or none at all. Policy Optimizer specifically addresses the issue of out-of-date or overly permissive rules. Using the module, network security teams identify problematic rules and validate their necessity with any relevant officials, including those teams that first requested the access in question -- greatly reducing overall policy complexity while ensuring that necessary defenses remain in place.

The FireMon Security Manager solutions platform provides comprehensive security intelligence to improve enforcement of network security infrastructure and drive strategic decisions based on current requirements. Policy Optimizer adds the ability to rapidly gather data and validate rule requests, as well as eliminate unneeded rules and make implemented rules more targeted, productive and effective -- maintaining the highest levels of security control.

Building on top of FireMon's existing, standards-based policy workflow engine, Policy Optimizer offers:
· Integrated business workflow that optimizes rules for access requirements, and aligns rules with security policies and controls with the ability to deploy multiple Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0-compliant workflows.
· Automated rule recertification that monitors and maintains ongoing and/or audit event-driven justification reviews, as well as impact assessments for rule adjustment or retirement.
· Proactive guidance and enforceable accountability with the ability to automatically -- via direct integration with the FireMon Policy Planner module -- create change tickets for removable rules and invoke application-level recommendations, adding lists of relevant applications, and configuring workflow based on application and owner-based rule properties (i.e. destination, service).
· New workflow process and UI providing a business-driven rule/device management interface to better engage business stakeholders, improve performance and document processes for best-practices development.

"Disconnect between network security operations, IT management and audit/compliance professionals remains a huge gap in overall enterprise IT risk management," said Jody Brazil, president and CTO of FireMon. "Policy Optimizer is the first solution that actively addresses and automates what is today a very manual and fragmented process that ultimately leads to a large number of today's most severe data breaches. This highly strategic solutions module was developed with direct input from our largest and most sophisticated customers, and delivers pragmatic benefits and total ROI within mere months."