More Firewall Questions

[kurtis.myers () us army mil]

My agency has Symantec Enterprise Firewall V6.5.0 and it needs to be re-certified as being security compliant; to 
accomplish this we will run a series of scripts against the OS (WINNT 4.0).  
 
The bottom line question is: do we need to bring this firewall off line to run the scripts?
 
The scripts only evaluate the values of the registry and not the functioning of the firewall software; we have reviewed 
the current rules and have accepted them as adequate, but must complete the OS verification.  After the OS assessment 
we will conduct penetration testing.  
 
Any recommendations or comments to our concept of verifying our firewall's security are welcomed.
 
Kurt Myers
IA Officer

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