Re: Firewall Basics

[Miles Stevenson <miles () mstevenson org>]

On Wednesday 21 July 2004 11:18 am, Jennifer Fountain wrote:
> I am designing a "service" network that is separate from our
> "production" network.  Our web sites, email server, etc will be
> utilizing this network; whereas, internet traffic and vpn traffic will
> utilize the other.  My question is in regards to firewalls.  Currently,
> I am using a PIX for my production network.  From what I have been
> hearing, it is recommended to use two different firewall vendors in this
> situation.  Is this a general consensus with all of you?  Or do you
> think having another pix would be ok?  Thanks for any info!

My advice is pretty much in-line with everyone else's: stick with what you 
know best. While in theory you can gain security by using diverse firewall 
platforms, the gains are probably minimum compared to other security 
practices. To put it another way, ask yourself "Is the rest of the security 
throughout my network really so good that using two different kinds of 
firewalls would be a good use of my time?"

Spend those resources on better log analysis, integrity checking, network 
intrusion detection, incident response preparation, etc, etc. You will gain a 
lot more using those resources elsewhere. =)


-- 
Miles Stevenson
miles () mstevenson org
PGP FP: 035F 7D40 44A9 28FA 7453 BDF4 329F 889D 767D 2F63

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