Almost half of firewall rules improperly configured

According to the research made by Turfin Technologies, almost half of all rules that allow or disallow communication through a firewall, are improperly configured.

As much as 85% administrators in big companies said that they simply lack the time needed to properly adjust firewall rules and increase their companies’ security. Only 7% of administrators have completely automated firewall rules, and almost half of them lose a month each year on configuring firewall rules. Experts were surprised by such a small number of administrators that completely automated the process, especially when they all complain to lack time for the task. A large quantity, 43% of administrators, do a complete process by hand, and 41% of them lack the knowledge to determine which rules are redundant or improperly configured. Number of administrators that configured the rules without consideration is very worrying (20%), and 23% of them have never configured rules on company firewalls. As companies use more and more computers, firewalls and virtualization, this process will become more time consuming and complicated, so experts suggest complete automatization of such tasks. More information can be found at InformationWeek web site.