Navigating Security Policies: Simplifying the Process Behind Your Keyboard

[kiwi]

Transitioning between security platforms can be a daunting challenge, particularly when shifting from a non-zone based system and having to construct a security policy from the ground up.

When creating a security policy, the 'Rule Type' dropdown is a crucial feature that can significantly alter how security policies function for you when used correctly!

 The impact of this seemingly straightforward 'type' is quite substantial, transforming a policy from the conventional any object in the source field to any object in the destination field to an exclusive operator

• Universal (default) rules apply to all matching interzone and intrazone traffic in the specified source and destination zones. For example, if you create a universal rule with source zones A and B and destination zones A and B, the rule would apply to all traffic within zone A, all traffic within zone B, and all traffic from zone A to zone B and all traffic from zone B to zone
• An 'intrazone' type policy will only allow (or block) sessions inside the same zone, this can be very useful when the firewall is set up in Layer 2 mode and is bridging VLANs from one switch stack to the other where each VLAN is represented by a zone.
• An 'interzone' type policy is the exact opposite, it will only allow sessions from one zone to a different zone, even if the same zone is listed in the destination field, which is useful when a lot of bidirectional policies need to be set up without inadvertently allowing or blocking sessions inside a zone.

For another cool resource to help you tighten up security, with a few nifty tricks, please check out: Security Policy Rule Optimization.

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Stay Secure,
Kiwi out!