To ensure network protection and maintain the security of information stored and handled by a company, it is essential to establish proactive network management with a firewall. This management allows for the handling of changes to login information, access policies, monitoring of suspicious network behavior, and other measures that maintain security.
All of this is possible through the proactive approach of the firewall, which acts as a protective barrier to monitor and control access, ensuring that only authorized users can access the organization's networks and devices . This guarantees that all data stored by the company remains out of reach of unauthorized users.
Gain a better understanding of how proactive network management with firewalls works and how this strategy can contribute to your organization's security.
What is proactive firewall management?
Proactive firewall management is a set of strategies and tools that allow your company to monitor network performance in real time, using reports with indicators that help gather information about what is happening on the organization's internet. Through this monitoring, your IT team can understand how the internet is used and identify dangerous behaviors in order to resolve problems before they cause any damage.
In this sense, proactive firewall management can be understood as a strategy to prevent problems instead of waiting for them to happen. Proactivity will allow for intelligent management of your infrastructure and, based on the information collected, will help optimize work and add strategies that improve processes within your company.
Through firewall , it's possible to identify suspicious actions and prevent serious problems from affecting your organization's network, maintaining the firewall as a proactive and strategic security solution. Given the immense growth of cyber threats today, establishing a proactive methodology to avoid these problems can be fundamental to keeping your company more protected.
A large portion of cyberattacks can be prevented through constant monitoring, so that suspicious activities are identified and blocked before the actions planned by cybercriminals can be completed.
How does proactive firewall management help my company in practice?
Proactive firewall management is a strategy that can make all the difference in the health and security of your company's networks. This management allows your organization to have more assertive control over technological resources and ensures that information is protected in the best possible way.
While no security solutions can guarantee complete protection of the information handled and stored by your company, establishing a proactive strategy can make all the difference. The reactive approach worked for many years, helping companies deal with security incidents as they occurred. However, due to the growth of attacks and the sophistication of the strategies used by criminals, it became necessary to adopt a new, proactive approach.
For this reason, a proactive strategy can make all the difference. In this way, it's possible to avoid threats and establish protection protocols that help prevent problems before they happen, keeping networks more secure and avoiding the immense losses that can be caused by cybercriminals.
What are the benefits that proactive network management with a firewall can provide?
Considering these factors, proactive network management with a firewall can guarantee several benefits for your organization. Below are the main benefits your company can obtain with this strategy:
Detecting system failures in advance
We know that nowadays companies need technological tools to stay in business. For this reason, early identification of problems is important for maintaining operations and ensuring the continuity of daily tasks.
Active and continuous monitoring of your organization's networks will help identify changes in resource usage or access behavior patterns, allowing the team to act immediately. This way, it's possible to increase security and avoid problems that can arise from current cyberattacks.
Learn about the internet security test and find out if your company is prepared to handle incidents of this type.
Quickly identify any device that is causing a failure.
Constant network monitoring will also help identify devices that are experiencing any kind of problem. This monitoring will allow your team to act more assertively, resolving the problem more quickly and efficiently, ensuring that your company remains always active.
Waiting for a problem to occur can cause immeasurable damage to the organization. A damaged, corrupted, or hacked device can easily serve as an entry point for all other devices in your company , facilitating a massive and extremely damaging cyberattack.
To prevent the network from operating at its capacity limit.
The resources available to the company should be directed towards activities that are truly relevant to the organization. In this sense, the entire network should be focused on tasks that are part of the routine and contribute to the execution of essential tasks, eliminating activities that hinder the proper functioning and productivity of the team.
Constant and proactive network monitoring helps control its usage so that all resources are directed towards the best interests of the organization, avoiding instability and delays that hinder employee productivity .
Automation of preventive and safety routines.
It is possible to use automation to establish routines that increase the security and protection of information stored by the company. Through this process, your company can establish intelligent and efficient routines that protect networks and prevent the most common problems affecting technological resources.
In addition to preventing human errors and mistakes, automation also saves time and helps direct the workforce towards activities essential for the organization's growth. Therefore, management will not only be investing in safety, but also in the company's growth.
Actions to increase network security through proactive management
As we have seen throughout this article, efficient firewall management will help make activities within your operation more secure and also protect the data stored by the company . In this way, your organization can avoid data breach incidents, such as information leaks , and protect its reputation in the market.
To increase network security through firewall management, it is possible to implement some management practices, as we will see below:
Implementation of security audits
Implementing security audits helps verify whether firewall rules are aligned with the company's security policies and comply with the requirements of the General Data Protection Law (LGPD ). Possible changes to the firewall policy can be corrected to maintain network security .
To make this audit even more efficient, you can also rely on a third-party company specializing in cybersecurity, allowing for an in-depth analysis of your organization's security requirements and potential improvements that can be implemented to increase data protection.
Firewall software update
Updates are developed to protect applications against the latest threats . For this reason, maintaining an update routine according to the demands of applications and tools is fundamental for the implementation of proactive network management with a firewall.
The update schedule should follow the needs of the applications so that they are protected whenever necessary, avoiding the creation of vulnerabilities that facilitate the actions of cybercriminals. This task can be automated or can be the responsibility of a specific employee.
Firewall Change Management Plan
A firewall change management plan should include a list of changes that can add value and enhance security, the desired outcomes, the individuals responsible for these processes, and the workflow necessary to manage the entire change protocol. Firewall changes are fundamental to ensuring that its rules align with current needs and that the tool remains reliable and efficient.
This entire process must be planned and implemented strategically to guarantee not only efficient changes but also to prevent the creation of vulnerabilities that facilitate access by unauthorized users.
Firewall rule base optimization
Optimizing the firewall rule base helps to update security and optimize the tool's performance. The presence of duplicate rules, excessive rules, redundancies, or unnecessary rules can impair its performance and effectiveness, making it very important to update this base so that the firewall remains efficient.
Optimizing these rules securely helps prevent negative scenarios and ensures the tool continues to protect your network in the best possible way.
Use an access control tool.
Access control tools are used to keep networks more secure and prevent indiscriminate access to unnecessary or malicious content. It is crucial to understand that connecting to a network that does not comply with your organization's established policies can be extremely harmful and expose your company to cybercriminals.
For this reason, access control can be crucial for increasing protection and avoiding the main dangers found on the internet today. To ensure that this strategy delivers all the necessary resources, rely on a trustworthy and well-established tool in the market.
How to implement proactive management
The main focus of proactive management is to establish measures that help maintain protection and prevent problems before they occur. This means that, to implement proactive network management with a firewall, it is necessary to establish strategies that help protect your networks and not just fix problems.
To achieve this, it's necessary to have protection and security tools for the effective monitoring of the resources used by your company . Understanding the expected network behavior and learning to identify abnormal patterns can make all the difference in this process.
This is possible with the help of a tool that performs this monitoring in an assertive and automated way. This means that this resource can constantly monitor your network and prevent access patterns considered dangerous, blocking threats and preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your organization's networks and devices.
