Firewall Review Services

Siege Cyber provides expert firewall review services that analyse your entire ruleset, identify security risks and compliance gaps, document the business justification for legitimate rules, and provide a clear remediation plan. You get an honest assessment of your network security posture and practical guidance to improve it without disrupting operations.

Here is what you get:

• Complete firewall rule analysis – We review every rule in your firewall policy to understand what it allows, why it exists, whether it is still needed, and whether it follows security best practices. We identify overly permissive "any any" rules, unused or stale rules, shadowed or conflicting rules, rules bypassing security controls, and opportunities for consolidation. You get a clear picture of what your firewall actually does, not what you think it does.
• Security risk assessment and prioritisation – Not all firewall misconfigurations pose equal risk. We assess each finding based on exploitability, business impact, and exposure to identify which issues require immediate remediation, which can be addressed in planned maintenance, and which are low priority. You get a prioritised remediation roadmap focused on actual risk, not just technical violations.
• Network segmentation review – We assess how your firewall implements network segmentation between different security zones (DMZ, internal network, management network, production, development). Poor segmentation allows attackers to move laterally once they breach the perimeter. We identify opportunities to improve segmentation and implement defence-in-depth strategies.
• Compliance gap analysis – We map your firewall configuration against ISO 27001 Annex A.13.1 (network security management), Essential Eight network segmentation requirements, PCI DSS Requirement 1 (firewall standards), APRA CPS 234 (for financial services), and other relevant frameworks. You get documented evidence of compliance or a clear list of gaps requiring remediation.
• Documentation and rule justification – One of the biggest problems with firewall rulesets is lack of documentation. Nobody knows why rules exist or who requested them. We help you document legitimate business justification for rules that should remain, identify rules with no clear purpose, and establish a framework for documenting future changes. This makes ongoing firewall management far easier.
• Change management and process recommendations – Beyond fixing current issues, we review your firewall change management process to identify how overly permissive rules get added in the first place. We provide recommendations for approval workflows, documentation requirements, periodic rule reviews, and automation to prevent future security drift.
• Detailed remediation roadmap – You receive a comprehensive firewall audit report including an executive summary (for leadership), detailed findings with evidence, specific rule changes required (numbered line items), a phased implementation plan that minimises disruption, and rollback procedures if changes cause issues. You know exactly what to change, in what order, and how to do it safely.

Our Firewall Audit Process

We have reviewed firewall configurations for dozens of Australian organisations. Here is how it works.

1. Scoping and Configuration Export

We meet with your team to understand your firewall environment: vendors and models (Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco, Checkpoint, pfSense, cloud firewalls), network architecture and security zones, compliance requirements, and known pain points. We arrange secure export of your firewall configuration files for analysis. This is typically read-only access or configuration backups. We never require write access to production firewalls.

2. Automated Rule Analysis and Baseline Assessment

We use enterprise-grade firewall analysis tools to parse your ruleset and identify obvious issues: any-any rules, overly broad source or destination addresses, unused rules (no traffic in 90+ days), shadowed or redundant rules, rules violating least-privilege principles, and compliance violations. This automated analysis provides a baseline of your current security posture.

3. Manual Security Review and Risk Assessment

Our security team manually reviews your firewall policy to assess business context, identify architectural weaknesses, evaluate network segmentation effectiveness, review rule ordering and logic, test for unintended access paths, and validate compliance alignment. This manual review finds issues automated tools miss, including business logic problems and contextual risks specific to your environment.

4. Documentation and Stakeholder Interviews

We work with your team to understand which rules are intentional and serve legitimate business needs versus which rules exist because "nobody wanted to break anything." This helps us distinguish between genuine requirements and technical debt. We document business justification for rules that should remain and flag rules with no clear owner or purpose.

5. Detailed Reporting and Remediation Planning

We deliver a comprehensive firewall audit report with an executive summary showing overall security posture, detailed findings organised by severity, specific rule-by-rule recommendations, a phased remediation plan with timelines, compliance gap analysis, and rollback procedures. Reports are written for both technical teams who implement changes and executives who need to understand risk.

6. Remediation Support and Validation

After you implement recommended changes, we validate that rules were updated correctly, test that legitimate traffic still flows, confirm overly permissive rules are tightened, and ensure compliance gaps are closed. We provide ongoing support during the remediation phase to answer questions and troubleshoot any issues that arise.

Who This Is For: Firewall Audit Services Australia

This service is designed for Australian SaaS companies, technology businesses, financial services firms, and any organisation that has accumulated firewall rules over years and needs an independent security review to identify what is safe to remove and what represents genuine security risk.

You are a good fit if:

• You need to satisfy ISO 27001 Annex A.13.1 (network security management) or demonstrate network security controls for compliance
• You are preparing for Essential Eight assessment and need to demonstrate effective network segmentation
• Your firewall ruleset has grown to thousands of rules and nobody is confident what can be safely removed
• You have inherited a firewall configuration from a previous administrator with no documentation
• Your compliance auditor or cyber insurance provider is asking for evidence of regular firewall reviews
• You have experienced a security incident and want to verify your firewall is properly configured
• You are in a regulated industry (financial services under APRA CPS 234, healthcare, critical infrastructure) and need documented network security controls
• You are pursuing PCI DSS compliance and need to satisfy Requirement 1 (firewall configuration standards)

Why Choose Siege Cyber for Firewall Security Assessment

20+ years of network security and offensive security experience. Our Technical Director, Peter Stewart, has spent over two decades in hands-on network security roles, including penetration testing where we exploit exactly the misconfigurations we now help clients prevent. We understand firewall security from an attacker's perspective, not just a compliance perspective.

Vendor-agnostic expertise across all major firewall platforms. We review firewalls from Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Cisco ASA and Firepower, Checkpoint, pfSense, Sophos, WatchGuard, and cloud-native firewalls (AWS Security Groups, Azure NSGs, GCP Firewall Rules). Most organisations operate multiple firewall vendors. We understand the unique configuration syntax and security considerations of each platform.

We understand Australian compliance requirements. ISO 27001 Annex A.13.1, Essential Eight network segmentation, APRA CPS 234 (for financial services), and PCI DSS all have specific network security and firewall requirements. We know what Australian auditors expect and deliver firewall reviews formatted for compliance evidence. If you are in a regulated industry, we understand your obligations.

Focus on practical remediation, not just findings. Many firewall audits dump hundreds of findings on you with no prioritisation or context. We provide clear, actionable recommendations including specific rule changes (by line number), justification for why changes are needed, phased implementation to minimise risk, and rollback procedures if issues occur. You get a roadmap, not just a problem list.

We protect production while improving security. The biggest fear with firewall changes is breaking legitimate business traffic. We take a conservative, phased approach to remediation: validate business requirements before changing rules, test changes in staging where possible, implement changes incrementally, maintain rollback procedures, and provide support during implementation. Security improvements that break business operations are not improvements.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a firewall review take?

For a typical enterprise firewall with 500-2,000 rules, the review takes 2-4 weeks from configuration export to final report delivery. Larger or more complex environments with multiple firewalls may take 4-6 weeks. The timeline depends on ruleset size, number of firewall devices, availability of your team for questions about business requirements, and scope of the review. We provide a detailed timeline during the scoping phase.

Will reviewing our firewall disrupt operations or cause downtime?

The review phase is entirely non-disruptive. We analyse exported configurations offline without touching production firewalls. The only potential disruption comes during remediation when you implement recommended changes, and that is entirely within your control. We provide a phased implementation plan with rollback procedures to minimise risk. Many clients implement changes during scheduled maintenance windows to further reduce impact.

What happens if we implement recommended changes and something breaks?

This is the most common fear with firewall changes, which is why we take a conservative approach. We provide detailed rollback procedures for every recommended change, implement changes in phases rather than all at once, validate business requirements before recommending rule removal, and remain available during implementation to troubleshoot issues. If legitimate traffic is blocked after a change, you can quickly roll back while we investigate the root cause.

Can you help us implement the recommended changes, or just identify issues?

We provide detailed remediation guidance including specific configuration commands, rule-by-rule changes, and implementation procedures. For clients who need additional support, we offer hands-on remediation assistance where our team works alongside yours to implement changes, test results, and validate no unintended impact occurs. Some clients prefer to handle implementation internally using our guidance, while others engage us for implementation support. Both options are available.

How often should we conduct firewall reviews?

For compliance purposes, annual firewall reviews are typically sufficient for ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and most frameworks. However, best practice is to conduct reviews whenever there are significant infrastructure changes, after security incidents, before major compliance audits, or when firewall rulesets grow significantly. Organisations with strict security requirements (financial services, critical infrastructure) may benefit from bi-annual reviews.

Do you review cloud firewalls (AWS Security Groups, Azure NSGs) as well as traditional firewalls?

Yes. We review both traditional hardware/virtual firewalls and cloud-native security controls including AWS Security Groups and NACLs, Azure Network Security Groups, and GCP Firewall Rules. Cloud security groups often have the same issues as traditional firewalls (overly permissive rules, lack of documentation, poor segmentation), and they require the same rigorous review. We understand the differences between traditional firewalls and cloud-native controls.

What is an "any any" rule and why is it dangerous?

An "any any" rule (permit ip any any) allows all traffic from any source to any destination on any port. It is the most permissive firewall rule possible and essentially bypasses the firewall entirely for that traffic. These rules are dangerous because they eliminate network segmentation, allow lateral movement if an attacker breaches the perimeter, bypass other security controls, and violate compliance requirements. Unfortunately, "any any" rules are extremely common because they are the fastest way to make something work when troubleshooting connectivity issues, but they are rarely removed afterwards.

Ready to Clean Up Your Firewall Ruleset?

Every day your firewall operates with overly permissive rules is another day an attacker can exploit them. Every audit you face with undocumented firewall configurations is another opportunity for compliance findings. The problem is not going to fix itself, and firewall rulesets only get more complex over time as more rules accumulate.

Book a free 30-minute consultation with our team. We will discuss your firewall environment, explain what a comprehensive review covers, and give you an honest assessment of whether you need one. You will leave the call understanding exactly what security risks exist in firewall configurations like yours and what a proper review involves.