‘X-Ray’ vision into firewall configurations and network traffic

WatchGuard® Technologies has announced what it says is the industry’s first interactive, integrated policy mapping capability for Unified Threat Management (UTM) and Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) appliances. Available in the latest version of its real-time network security visibility solution, WatchGuard Dimension™, Policy Map provides a comprehensive view of traffic flow and policy impact across the entire network, with the ability to quickly filter or drill down for additional detail and analysis.

Security policies are central to firewall operation and according to a 2014 Verizon Report, there’s a strong correlation between a badly configured firewall and the likelihood of a security breach. Dimension Policy Map aggregates disparate information about policies, interfaces, applications and related traffic flows, and presents it in a simple, intuitive and interactive visualisation dashboard. It can be used for policy audit, to find active and misconfigured policies, identify unusual or abnormal traffic patterns, visually check if firewall policies or configuration changes have the intended impact on traffic patterns and much more.

“Security policies are the brains of a firewall and dictate the effectiveness of any firewall configuration and directly impact our customers’ network protection,” said Dave R. Taylor, vice president of corporate and product strategy at WatchGuard Technologies. “Given the tremendous customer uptake for Dimension on a global basis, we recognised an opportunity to improve their security management and help eliminate errors by giving network administrators a powerful tool for visualising policy analysis. They can now see policies like never before and instantly evaluate the impact on the network or user.”

Beyond Policy Map, the latest update to Dimension brings a variety of additional insightful reporting and new dashboard features that includes information on zero-day malware, details about website visits and traffic disposition, enhanced navigation, and consolidated CA certificate management. And it comes free on any WatchGuard UTM or NGFW platform.