Summary

Managing firewalls is not much different from managing any other device on the network. However, special care must be taken when managing a firewall because it represents the nexus of security in the any network. In many cases, it represents the only security device on the network. Managing a firewall securely is not difficult and does not mean that you are limited only to command-line tools. You can manage many firewalls using SSH (for command-line configuration) and HTTPS (for a browser-based management system) to do such tasks as change default passwords, maintain the platform, make initial configurations, set up logging, modify the configuration, and update the firewall software. Finally, paying attention to potential defects in the firewall software will ensure that a bug or a vulnerability will not sneak up unnoticed and cause a DoS attack or the potential exploitation of devices in the network.