US Patent 10237240 Assessing risk associated with firewall rules

Techniques for assessing risk associated with firewall rules are provided. In one implementation, a method includes receiving a request for the network to apply a firewall policy rule to control traffic to a machine associated with the network, wherein the firewall policy rule comprises information that identifies a remote address from which the traffic can originate and a type of the traffic. The method further includes determining a remote address risk value representative of a first degree of security risk associated with allowing the traffic to access the machine in response to the traffic being determined to originate from the remote address; determining a traffic type risk value representative of a second degree of security risk associated with allowing the type of traffic to access the machine; and determining a total risk value based on a combination of the remote address risk value and the traffic type risk value.