My research led me to a company named “ManageEngine” that has a product with firewall logging called “Firewall Analyzer”. It has the functionality of monitoring employee Internet usage and the websites that consume the bandwidth.
The following insights can be gained from this tool:
Internet sites accessed by the employees in your organization.
Protocols used by them for communication.
Business Hour and Non-Business Hour web usage details and trends.
To identify internet abuse, and excessive internet usage.
Keep tab of employee internet transactions that can cause attacks / virus in your environment.
Get notification on, when an employee tries to access restricted sites, like streaming and chat sites.
Get notified on anomalies like sudden spike in internet usage.
Firewall Rules used by your employees and their usage pattern.
Monitor employee internet usage and compare it with your historical data and thus enabling you to make firewall policy changes.
Get live internet bandwidth graphs with finer details of inbound and outbound traffic flows.(ManageEngine, n.d.)
Optimal productivity from employees is important in any business setting. Thus restricting Internet usage at workstations to business related matters will strengthen and grow resources. With the above insight, you can fine tune the Firewall policies to block or restrict bandwidth guzzling web sites.(ManageEngine, n.d.)
Enterprise Firewall Management;
ManageEngine (n.d.) explains that large enterprises need a solution capable of supporting a Enterprise Firewall Architecture. Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) are also in need of a scalable, distributed solution along with secured and exclusive segmented views for their clients. MSSPs require a solution which can be deployed to take care of a block of geographical area. Multi-national enterprises and MSSPs look out for a solution with following features:
Centralized monitoring
Truly scalable to meet the number of devices required to be monitored
Deployed in different geographical locations
Firewall Analyzer addresses this network security need for both large enterprises and MSSPs with its distributed monitoring firewall capabilities. Firewall Analyzer’s Enterprise edition acts as a comprehensive enterprise firewall management software. This enterprise firewall monitoring tool can scale up to monitor hundreds of devices, deployed at locations across the globe. To cater for the MSSPs, it offers customizable dashboards and user specific views.
Firewall Analyzer Enterprise edition is scalable and deployable in distributed model. It offers centralized monitoring of all distributed locations in a single console. It provides exclusive segmented secured for different users (ManageEngine, n.d.).
I here by affirm that I do not have stock in this company. However they are a good source to remember if we are ever in a corporate global company. Although whether big or small firewall protection is very important. Firewall logs contain a wealth of technical information. Some of the common data points you’ll find in these logs include:
Source and destination IP addresses: Identifies where traffic is coming from and going to.
Port numbers: Indicates which port the traffic is trying to access (e.g., HTTP traffic through port 80).
Protocols used: Identifies the communication protocol (e.g., TCP, UDP).
Timestamp: Logs the exact time an event occurred.
Actions taken: Whether the firewall allowed or blocked the traffic.
Error messages: Any errors or failed attempts that occurred during the traffic exchange.(ManageEngine, n.d.)
ManageEngine. (n.d.). Firewall logs: Firewall log monitoring & management. https://www.manageengine.com/products/firewall/firewall-logs.html
