Patent ID: 7941838

Claim:
A method of operating a computing device connectable to a plurality of networks, the method comprising: in response to an indication that a network configuration of the computing device has changed: determining if the computing device has two or more active network connections; selecting a set of firewall rules of a plurality of sets of firewall rules, each set of the plurality of sets of firewall rules defined for use when the computing device is connected to a network having a type, when the computing device has two or more active network connections, the selected set of firewall rules is a set of firewall rules defined for use when the computing device is connected to a least secure of the two or more active network connections; and configuring a firewall with the selected set of firewall rules, the configuring the firewall comprising: determining the firewall is already configured with one or more rules from a previously applied profile; computing a delta between the selected set of firewall rules and the one or more rules from the previously applied profile, the delta excluding a rule when the rule is common to the selected set of firewall rules and the previously applied profile; applying the computed delta to the firewall configuration for all connected networks regardless of the type of the connected network, the applying the computed delta comprising at least one of (a) deletion of a rule or (b) addition of a rule.