[FW1] Boson FW-1 Admnistrator Exam

[Lance Spitzner <lance@FW1-NOSPAMspitzner.net>]

Recently,  I was asked a question about a "Boson"
FW-1 Administrator exam.  I have no idea what this
exam is, nor who sponsors it.  However, if the
material quouted below is true, then this question
greatly disturbs me.  I wanted to know if anyone
else has ran into this.

--- snip snip ---

I have always thought that it is necessary to harden the OS for the firewall
server. However, I was doing the Boson Checkpoint FW-1 Administrator
practice exams when I came across this question:

Question: Why is it unnecessary for Firewall-1 to harden the OS?

Answer: Firewalls that do not analyze the packet until it gets to the
application layer need to protect themselves from the lower layer attacks.
Firewall-1 protects itself by analyzing all the layers of the packet.
Therefore it is unncessary for the administrator to harden the OS for
Firewall-1 server.

Is this true????

--- snip snip ---

This is absolutely NOT true.  If an exam is making these assumptions,
then it shows that the author has a total lack of security knowledge.
No firewall is impervious to vulnerabilities, Bugtraq demonstrates this
again and again.  Also, base OS armoring protects the firewall against
rulebase or administrative misconfigurations.  I highly recommend OS
armoring for all firewalls, regardless of the vendor.  Part of security
is reducing risk at all levels. 

-- 
Lance Spitzner
http://project.honeynet.org




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