FireMon, the leader in Intelligent Security Management, today announced results from a survey conducted at the RSA Conference that assessed the views of 350 IT security professionals on the importance of firewalls in the battle to prevent data breaches. The poll found that 72% of respondents agreed that no matter how much money is spent on IT security, it is wasted if the firewalls are not configured properly. A further 52% had experienced a firewall configuration change that opened a potential security breach that caused business downtime.
“We often hear that ‘the firewall is dead’ and an array of security ‘solutions’ have cropped up in this wake, but it is clear from this study that is most definitely not the case,” said Michael Callahan, CMO, FireMon. ”In fact, no matter what security solutions an organisation has in place, it means nothing if the firewalls aren’t managed correctly. The problem is compounded when you think about how many organisations have tens or even hundreds of firewalls as part of their security defences – all of which need to be configured. This creates a gap between the security environment complexity and the resources to manage it where mistakes are likely to occur and risk increases.”
FireMon believes the key to closing this gap is more effective management of security solutions, in a world where the consequences of having an insecure security system can be catastrophic, leaving enterprises vulnerable to an array of cyber threats, such as hackers, data breaches and Trojans, among others. In addition, business downtime or interruption costs can significantly impact trade and income, but the greatest cost can sometimes be reputational. Customers don’t want to be associated with a brand that puts their data at risk, which is why it is so important for security systems to be fully functioning and free from exploits.
“Incorporating robust, intelligent security management can greatly reduce all the complexity that surrounds the IT security infrastructure,” continued Callahan. “It can help identify specific weak points within the firewall and avert any potential breach within a system.”
“Importantly, for the majority of organisations that said they had experienced downtime due to a faulty firewall rule change, FireMon’s state of the art technology allows security managers to “preview” any changes made to the firewall, making it easier to preserve security. Enterprises defences are only as good as the security systems behind it and so integrating a firewall tools should be an important part of any large enterprise’s security arsenal,” he concluded.
