Network security is a major concern for both enterprises and individuals. With threats seemingly around every corner, we focus much of our energy on awareness and mitigation, such as firewalls.
Well, sometimes. It’s not always this simple. Setting up a suitable firewall becomes far more of a challenge the more systems there are in a single network. It can also be difficult to gauge exactly what threats you’re up against and what tools are the best to use for your specific network.
Enter FireMon.
Founded in 2004 in Kansas, FireMon started out offering firewall management solutions. This service spun into what is today FireMon’s premiere product – the FireMon Security Manager.
The FireMon Security Manager is a firewall management platform designed for massive networks with thousands of hosts. Claimed by FireMon to provide real-time threat analysis, the ability to see and clean up overly lenient user permissions as well as firewall policies, and allows for the monitoring of network traffic behavior in order to find policies which may be overly permissive.
Not only that, but FireMon Security Manager is able to isolate, document and detect any change that may exist in your firewall policies.
FireMon offers three modules which can be purchased separately in order to extend the capabilities of Security Manager – Policy Planner, Policy Optimizer, and Risk Analyzer.
Policy Planner recommends certain policy changes and analyzes the impact any policy changes may have on overall security. Policy Optimizer allows for the automation of policy review and changes based on shifting security conditions as well as compliance requirements. Risk Analyzer is a risk-assessment tool designed to evaluate the efficacy of a network’s security infrastructure by determining which vulnerabilities are most likely to be exploited by hackers.
Breaking The Fourth Wall
FireMon continues to address a real need in the market with the FireMon Security Manager as well as its other products. In this age of increased security threats to our networks, the security of an organization’s firewall is vital as well as its durability against external threats and network vulnerabilities. The FireMon Security Manager allows users to see the existence of threats and vulnerabilities, as well as providing analysis for addressing the issue.
However, FireMon isn’t only focusing on bringing intelligence security analytics to the firewall. FireMon announced October 20, 2016 that it had acquired FortyCloud, a Cloud Infrastructure Security Broker.
Thanks to the acquisition, FireMon can now turn its gaze to the cloud and address multi-cloud management and the need for cloud-based intelligent security management capabilities. FortyCloud allows users to connect securely to multi-cloud environments and even provides options for extending cloud security, such as two-factor authentication.
With more and more organizations seeking to bring their networks into the Cloud, security is increasingly a concern. However, being able to work with the FortyCloud team leaves FireMon in a position to develop usable offerings to meet the security needs that will most certainly develop from cloud-based networks.
There is certainly competition in the market from other players, such as Skybox Security, Tufin, and Algosec, however, with the acquisition of FortyCloud, FireMon can continue being a strong player in the rapidly-changing industry.
Javvad Malik 