Design of Tool to Detect Anomalies in Firewall Rules

The role of a firewall is to accept or discard packets by examining them through a sequence of rules. Often these rules are conflicting and create anomalies. Managing firewall rules is somewhat complex. Effectiveness of any firewall depends upon the quality of policy configuration and its rule set. This paper describes an algorithm implemented in a tool which identifies the anomalies automatically in rule set by placing the new rule in its appropriate position. The presented approach is helpful in improving the efficiency of firewall and maintaining the appropriate order of firewall rule set to avoid anomalies.