Data security is top of mind of most IT administrators in a never-ending battle against cybercriminals. A report released earlier this year, “Unsecured Economies: Protecting Vital Information” by Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security and sponsored by McAfee (News - Alert), revealed that cybercrime may have cost businesses on average $4.6 million from data and intellectual property exposure in 2008.

 

IT administrators are not surprisingly in an ongoing hunt for the best solutions to prevent unauthorized data access. And to illustrate, Secure Passage reportedly announced that in one month hundreds of organizations have downloaded Secure Passage’s Firewall Auditor. This is a free application enabling firewall administrators to quickly and easily audit firewall configurations to ensure that they are enforcing security and compliance regulations.

 

Of the hundreds of organizations that have downloaded the application, more than 175 are now actively using it to conduct Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard audits. This early and significant adoption rate also demonstrates an elevated demand for Secure Passage’s FireMon-based technologies that it says improves firewall management capabilities.

 

Organizations can download a free version of Firewall Auditor at www.fwauditor.com. Once the application has been activated, users can quickly and easily audit their firewalls for adherence to the PCI (News - Alert) DSS. They can then generate comprehensive and accurate reports that can be used to prove to auditors that firewalls are in compliance and to identify non-compliant configurations that should be changed. Reportedly the first solution of its kind available to the IT security market, Firewall Auditor is based on FireMon, but does not require FireMon to be installed or to operate.

 

With Secure Passage Firewall Auditor, firewall administrators can and are quickly and easily:

 

* Retrieving and importing firewall configurations from Check Point, Cisco (News - Alert) and Juniper firewalls

 

* Inspecting configurations for non-compliance with major industry and government regulations

 

* Producing accurate reports that display where and why rules and policies are non-compliant

 

* Taking steps to remediate non-compliant configurations

   

With Secure Passage Firewall Auditor’s PCI DSS report template, IT administrators can quickly and easily evaluate 15 PCI DSS requirements from sections one, two and six. They can also specify key input criteria to customize the audit to their organization's unique environment.

 

“This is the fastest adoption rate we’ve ever experienced for a downloadable application that improves firewall management capabilities,” said Jody Brazil, Secure Passage president and chief technology officer. “Customers using Firewall Auditor include some of the world's largest diversified manufacturers and marketers of advanced electronic and electrical products, airline carriers, retailers, banks, and technology solutions providers. We're excited about the fact that in less than a month, 175 customers have adopted the technology, and we're looking forward to enabling even more users to ease their firewall management burdens with the use of this free, proven application.”