Top 6 Host-Based Firewall Management Solutions

What Is Host-Based Firewall (HBFW) Management?

Host-based firewall management is the process of maintaining a firewall that sits within your OS, server or device. Host-based firewalls are configured using policies and rules to allow or disallow traffic based on predefined criteria — such as a packet’s transport protocol or a device’s IP address source and destination. 

Host-based firewall management solutions connect to a device’s management information base (MIB) through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to track and provide detailed reports on firewall performance in real time. This allows you to detect and curtail suspicious activity almost instantly, as well as gain comprehensive data for firewall policy patching.

Since they are configured very close to hosts, these solutions are particularly effective while other firewall solutions fail to deter potential attacks.

Although firewalls heighten network security and compliance, misconfigurations impede their efficacy. HBFW solutions are at the front line of addressing this challenge by simplifying firewall configuration and monitoring.

But how do you know which one to choose from the pool of available solutions? In this article, we examine six top solutions and their functionalities.

Importance of Proper Firewall Management

Organizations deploy and manage multiple firewalls to protect their network from spyware, worms and trojans, as well as packet sniffing, hijacking, man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks and injection attacks. However, firewalls are incredibly difficult to set up and manage because their policies are written in low-level, platform- or device-specific Syntax. Also, rules must be configured in a way that allows access to the average incoming and outgoing traffic without letting in malicious actors.

This means administrators must configure firewalls to not only consider IP addresses and corresponding details but also assess each IP to determine its legitimacy.

To further add to this complexity, malware, viruses and attack tactics are constantly evolving — if firewall policies are out of date, the firewalls themselves are essentially defenseless against the latest attack techniques. This means you need to regularly patch them as new threats evolve, rules expire or network configurations change.

Essentially, a firewall is only as efficient as its management, making firewall management crucial for the following reasons:

1. It includes monitoring and logging the firewall’s activity to detect traffic filtering patterns, which can then be used to further strengthen existing firewall rules.
2. It entails the assessment of firewall rules to eradicate conflicting rules, prevent legitimate traffic from getting blocked, and ultimately facilitate client conversion and business turnover.
3. It helps guarantee compliance with industry-specific standards for network and data security. When done effectively, firewall management helps safeguard sensitive data and avoid potential regulatory fines and lawsuits.

Organizations can choose self-managed firewalls (e.g., Windows Defender Firewall) or service provider-managed firewalls (e.g., Falcon Firewall Management) to address the firewall management complexities discussed above.

Pros of a Managed HBFW

A managed host-based firewall is a third-party solution that offers proactive HBFW monitoring and administration, providing companies with several key benefits.

Expert and Automated Management

Instead of burdening your security team with the highly technical task of firewall management, you can leverage the expertise of a managed service provider to promptly address all security issues and provide regular feedback on the state of your HBFW. With managed solutions, network monitoring is also automated, allowing for instant threat/anomaly prevention.

Network Location Awareness (NLA)

HBFWs typically have different network location options. With NLA, you can specify any of the three locations for each firewall rule, ensuring different rules will apply when the endpoint is at different “locations.” Some firewalls have three: domain networks (discoverable, applied when the host system is connected to a domain controller), private networks (discoverable, user-assigned) and public networks (a default but changeable setting, undiscoverable to prevent discovery by other devices on the public network). Users can permanently configure their preferred location or change the location intermittently as required. NLA further enhances firewall effectiveness and improves security.

Streamlined Management

Managed HBFWs are easier to set up, implement and monitor. They save on costs related to employing and training staff, and also on time since security/DevSecOps teams do not have to set up and regularly patch multitudes of rules/policies. This is especially the case for large organizations with heterogeneous firewalls on different endpoints.

Data Access Concerns

One potential downside of a managed HBFW is the given service provider has access to sensitive data within your systems. However, this can be minimized by choosing a reputable service provider and implementing identity and role-based access controls.

Choosing a Host-Based Firewall Management Solution

The following are some important criteria to consider when choosing a host-based firewall management solution.

Simplicity

Consider a solution that deploys quickly, without reboots or configurations requiring a lot of time and effort. There should be customizable templates for easy configuration and maintenance of firewall policies across various workloads and environments. The solution should also allow you to easily circulate policy changes and reuse rule groups across environments.

Centralized Management

A solution that offers a unified dashboard where important firewall metrics are displayed must be a priority. These metrics could include:

• Details of changes to firewall rules
• CPU and memory usage
• Number of attempted, blocked and successful connections/requests
• Number of malware and virus injection attempts detected and prevented

Automation and Scalability

Large organizations can have hundreds of firewalls, all of which must be managed properly. Since manual management is laborious and unnecessarily stressful, the ideal firewall management solution will take the burden off users and automate firewall monitoring, anomaly detection and threat prevention. This will help ensure that regardless of the scale, you can apply specific app and traffic-source rules, as well as vary the rules across diverse firewalls within your larger environment.

Integrability

Choose a solution that seamlessly integrates with apps and app components, endpoints, existing firewalls and other solutions in your organization’s stack. The solution must not spike host CPU usage or negatively affect the performance of your host.

Troubleshooting and Compliance

The right solution should log detailed performance data so if any anomalies are observed, your security team can act fast to install a new rule or remove an old one. These logs can also serve as evidence of compliance when necessary.

6 Best Host-Based Firewall Management Solutions

Having considered the functionalities that an ideal solution should offer, here’s six top firewall management solutions, along with the functionalities they offer.