FireViz : a personal firewall visualizing tool

Abstract

In this thesis, I present FireViz, a personal firewall visualizing tool. FireViz visually displays activities of a personal firewall in real time. The primary goal of FireViz is to educate typical computer users of the security threats their computers are exposed to when connected to a network and expose any potential loop holes in the firewall's security policies. To this end, FireViz presents a novel visualization paradigm that provides users with an informative yet non-intrusive interface to their network and firewall. FireViz achieves this by incorporating a peripheral mapping of the network on the user's screen and displaying network events along this periphery. Information about network events is encoded visually to help users develop a more intuitive model of the network at a low cost. The peripheral nature of FireViz along with the use of non-modal visual displays allows users to easily understand network events without obstructing their primary tasks. The visualization is also capable of highlighting exceptional events that may represent potential threats without relying on the end user to understand ally threat model. Thus, FireViz aims to provide users with a superior framework for understanding the network security model and achieving improved system security in the process.