Method and apparatus for optimizing a firewall

1. A method for optimizing a set of rules associated with a firewall security policy, the method comprising:

examining stored characteristics associated with network traffic monitored by a firewall;

determining rule invocation of one or more rules in a first set of rules, with respect to the network traffic, the first set of rules being associated with a firewall security policy;

automatically generating a second set of rules based on the rule invocation, by at least performing an online adaptation technique, wherein performing the online adaptation technique further comprises:

generating a long-term rule hit profile based on traffic variability;

comparing a short-term traffic pattern with the long-term rule hit profile; and

generating the second set of rules when a discrepancy is detected between the short-term traffic pattern and the long-term rule hit profile; and

enforcing the firewall security policy, based on the second set of rules.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of enforcing the firewall security policy further comprises enforcing, by the firewall, the second set of rules on the network traffic.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising removing redundancies in the first set of rules.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating a disjoint rule set from the first set of rules.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising removing dependencies from the first set of rules.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising creating new rules.

7. The method of claim 4 further comprising merging rules to generate a rule set based optimized set of rules.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein performing the online adaptation technique further comprises performing at least one of profile based reordering and anomaly detection and countermeasure.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the second set of rules has a different order than the first set of rules.

10. A firewall enforcing a set of rules associated with a firewall security policy, the firewall comprising:

a traffic based optimizer configured to:

examine stored characteristics associated with network traffic monitored by the firewall;

determine rule invocation of one or more rules in a first set of rules with respect to the network traffic, the first set of rules being associated with a firewall security policy; and

automatically generate a second set of rules based on the rule invocation, by at least performing an online adaptation technique comprising generating a long-term rule hit profile based on traffic variability, comparing a short-term traffic pattern with the long-term rule hit profile, and generating the second set of rules when a discrepancy is detected between the short-term traffic pattern and the long-term rule hit profile;

the firewall configured to enforce the firewall security policy, based on the second set of rules.

11. The firewall of claim 10 further comprising a rule set based optimizer configured to remove redundancies in the first set of rules.

12. The firewall of claim 10 further comprising a rule set based optimizer configured to generate a disjoint rule set from the first set of rules.

13. The firewall of claim 12 wherein the rule set based optimizer is configured to remove dependencies from the first set of rules.

14. The firewall of claim 12 wherein the rule set based optimizer is configured to create new rules.

15. The firewall of claim 12 wherein the rule set based optimizer is configured to merge rules to generate a rule set based optimized set of rules.

16. The firewall of claim 15 wherein traffic based optimizer is configured to perform at least one of profile based reordering and anomaly detection and countermeasure on the rule set based optimized set of rules to generate the second set of rules.

17. The firewall of claim 10 wherein the first set of rules has a different order than the second set of rules.

18. A firewall enforcing a set of rules associated with a firewall security policy, the firewall comprising:

means for examining stored characteristics associated with network traffic monitored by the firewall;

means for determining rule invocation of one or more rules in a first set of rules with respect to the network traffic, the first set of rules being associated with a firewall security policy;

means for automatically generating a second set of rules based on the rule invocation, by at least performing an online adaptation technique, wherein the means for performing an online adaptation technique further comprises:

means for generating a long-term rule hit profile based on traffic variability;

means for comparing a short-term traffic pattern with the long-term rule hit profile; and

means for generating the second set of rules when a discrepancy is detected between the short-term traffic pattern and the long-term rule hit profile; and

means for enforcing the firewall security policy, based on the second set of rules.

19. The firewall of claim 18 further comprising means for removing redundancies in the first set of rules.

20. The firewall of claim 18 further comprising means for generating a disjoint rule set from the first set of rules.

21. The firewall of claim 20 further comprising means for removing dependencies from the first set of rules.

22. The firewall of claim 21 further comprising means for creating new rules.

23. The firewall of claim 20 further comprising means for merging rules to generate a rule set based optimized set of rules.

24. The firewall of claim 18 wherein the means for performing the online adaptation technique further comprises means for performing at least one of profile based reordering and anomaly detection and countermeasure.