http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsID=118561 

By Tom Jowitt
Techworld
03 July 2009

Most organisations are getting a poor return on their investments in 
firewalls due to the complex issues in managing them. This is despite 
the fact that enterprises are facing on average 300 network attacks 
every year.

That's according to an IDC multimedia white paper, The State of Today's 
Firewall Management Challenges, sponsored by McAfee.

"This class of product acts as the gatekeeper to the corporate network," 
said Charles Kolodgy, research director at IDC in the multimedia 
presentation. "Firewalls inspect IP packets as they enter the network. 
The inspection is to determine if the packet conforms to a policy. For 
example, is it an acceptable protocol? Based upon the rules configured 
into the firewall, the packet will either be allowed through, or 
rejected or dropped. Firewalls are the most deployed network security 
technology."

Various studies have shown that 94 percent of organisations are thought 
to have firewalls, although IDC thinks it is more like 85 percent of 
organisations have firewalls in place.

[...]


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