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FireMon Delivers 60% Reduction in Manual Rule Review Time After NSPM Platform Failure
A large U.S.-based nonprofit healthcare system operating hospitals and care sites nationwide, formed through the merger of two major health organizations and serving communities across the United States.
The Results
60%
Reduction in manual rule review time
1,000+
Devices managed across Palo Alto and Cisco
100%
NIST, PCI, HIPAA, and HITRUST compliance
The Challenge
A large U.S.-based healthcare organization was operating a complex, multi-vendor firewall environment with more than 1,000 devices, driven by years of growth and acquisitions that created sprawling rulebases and manual governance processes. A failed upgrade rendered its existing NSPM platform unusable, eliminating visibility, reporting, and reliable rule review across the environment. Without a functional solution, routine tasks like rule cleanup, recertification, and compliance reporting became error-prone and resource-intensive, increasing operational strain and audit risk.
The company sought to:
- Restore centralized visibility and control across more than 1,000 multi-vendor firewalls
- Replace broken, manual rule review processes with reliable automation
- Reduce policy sprawl and clean up unused, expired, and overly permissive rules
- Reestablish audit-ready compliance reporting without ongoing professional services
The Solution
The organization selected FireMon to replace its failed NSPM platform and implement a centralized, scalable approach to firewall policy management. FireMon delivered immediate multi-vendor visibility through a single normalized policy model and automated rule review workflows, reducing manual effort and technical debt. Built-in compliance reporting and workflow integrations enabled audit-ready alignment with frameworks like NIST, PCI, HIPAA, and HITRUST without ongoing professional services.
- Centralized, multi-vendor firewall visibility by normalizing all policies into a single rulebase
- Automated rule review, recertification, and cleanup to eliminate manual, error-prone processes
- Embedded risk and usage analysis to identify unused, expired, and overly permissive rules before changes were made
- Built-in compliance reporting and audit-ready frameworks (NIST, PCI, HIPAA, HITRUST) without reliance on ongoing professional services
Results
- 60% reduction in manual rule review time through automated recertification and cleanup
- Faster, more reliable policy changes by replacing broken and manual processes
- Improved visibility and governance across more than 1,000 firewalls
- Lower audit preparation effort with continuous, audit-ready compliance reporting
After our previous platform failed, FireMon gave us immediate visibility and a reliable way to clean up and govern firewall policy at scale, without adding more manual work.
System Director, Cyber Engineering Services, managing the selection and deployment of FireMon