Despite significant investments in firewalls and cloud security, policy management remains a weak spot in many organizations. FireMon’s large-scale analysis of 9.2 million policy checks has identified substantial gaps in hybrid network environments and introduces new analysis and automation capabilities with Insights 2.0.
Many companies have invested heavily in firewalls, cloud security solutions, and network segmentation in recent years. However, new data indicates that the underlying policies are often not under control. FireMon, a provider of Network Security Policy Management solutions, evaluated 9.2 million policy checks in a recent study. The results highlight structural problems in managing security policies in hybrid environments.
According to the analysis, 58 percent of the firewalls examined fail critical compliance checks with high risk ratings. At the highest criticality level, 48 percent fail. Additionally, 69 percent of firewall rules are unused. 45 percent of firewalls lack an assigned or documented owner, creating audit gaps and operational blind spots. Another 17 percent of rules are redundant or shadowed by other rules.
These figures underscore a fundamental issue: Manual management of complex policy environments is reaching its limits. Outdated rules, uncontrolled changes, and long-standing unresolved risks accumulate faster than security teams can address them. FireMon views this not only as an operational but as a core control problem.
With Insights 2.0, the company is expanding its platform with AI-powered, continuous analysis. Unlike static dashboards, the new solution incorporates the operational context of policy data. The goal is to help security teams identify risks more quickly, set priorities, and uncover automation opportunities.
New features include “Policy Change Intelligence” for analyzing policy changes, “Workflow-Intelligence” for transparency in change processes, and “Control Failure Analysis,” which identifies recurring control failures. Additional modules provide trend analyses of policy compliance and domain-based visibility at the control level.
The data also show positive effects of automation: Automated policy workflows carry 67 percent lower change risk compared to manual changes. Customers using FireMon Policy Manager reduced control errors by up to 31 percent in the first six months.
Jody Brazil, CEO of FireMon, emphasizes the need for a comprehensive “Policy Control Plane.” Without this layer, consistent policy management across hybrid, segmented, and cloud-based environments is hardly feasible. FireMon positions its platform as the control layer above actual enforcement technologies such as firewalls and micro-segmentation solutions.
Insights 2.0 is now available to existing customers. The company also announced a webinar to present the study results and new features.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de