Patent ID: 8677496

Claim:
A computer implemented method of detecting firewall mis-configurations of a firewall operatively associated with a computer network, the method is comprising the following steps: receiving a firewall configuration; algorithmically simulating all potential packet received on an internal model of the firewall; generating a simulation report that is exhibiting relationships between any potential packet received by the firewall and a corresponding action taken by the firewall in response; converting the simulation report into a computer searchable file thus enabling detection of firewall mis-configurations; detecting firewall mis-configurations by searching the computer searchable file for mis-configurations in view of a predefined knowledge base exhibiting risk items associated with corresponding firewall mis-configurations; producing a list of risks associated with the firewall based on a customization of the detected firewall mis-configurations, wherein the customization is according to the knowledge base and the simulation report; and eliminating redundancy of reported risks by defining a suppression code for each risk associated with at least one second risk where the rules of the second risk logically contains the rules of the first risk, wherein the reported risks which have same number of triggering rules as the corresponding second risk defined by suppression code of the first risk, are suppressed, wherein the computer searchable file obeys a particular predefined schema indicating relationships between objects exhibited on tables in the simulation report, and wherein the searched mis-configurations are in a particular predefined search expression format that corresponds with the particular predefined schema.