Key Takeaways
- Firewall misconfigurations are the leading source of configuration‑related breaches, cited by 42 % of security professionals.
- Reach Security’s new Network Security Assurance provides continuous, AI‑driven visibility into firewall, SASE, and adjacent controls to detect drift and risky rules in real time.
- Customer telemetry shows an average of 13 drift alerts per day, with 12 reflecting genuine, risk‑prioritized exposures, most often originating in firewalls.
- The solution prioritizes exploitable gaps, maps findings to responsible enforcement points, and guides or automates remediation before attackers can act.
- By delivering AI‑native speed and scale, Reach helps organizations close the widening gap between control drift and AI‑powered attack exploitation.
The Persistent Problem of Firewall Misconfigurations
Firewalls remain the most common source of configuration‑related breaches or near misses, with 42 % of security professionals reporting an incident tied to firewall misconfiguration in the past year. As networks grow more complex, rulebases accumulate stale, shadowed, or overly permissive entries that drift away from intended security baselines. This silent erosion creates hidden pathways that AI‑powered adversaries can exploit before defenders notice the change. The problem is not isolated audits and manual reviews, which occur only periodically, are insufficient to keep pace with the speed of modern network changes and attack techniques.
Reach Security Launches Network Security Assurance
On July 7th, 2026, Reach Security announced Network Security Assurance, an AI‑native operating system designed specifically for continuous defense of network security controls. The offering delivers real‑time insight into how firewalls, SASE platforms, and adjacent enforcement points are configured, enforced, and drifting over time. By constantly validating rule effectiveness, Reach identifies misconfigurations, weak security profiles, unintended access paths, and policy drift at machine speed, then prioritizes the issues that pose the greatest risk and initiates remediation before attackers can capitalize on them.
Research Findings: Configure → Drift → Breach → Repeat
Reach’s proprietary research, titled Configure → Drift → Breach → Repeat: Understanding the Cycle of Security Control Configuration Risk, surveyed cybersecurity leaders about incidents or near misses experienced in the last 12 months due to misconfigurations in existing security tools. Forty‑two percent pointed to the firewall as the origin of those events, making it the most frequently cited source of configuration‑related exposure. The study illustrates a recurring loop: a rule is configured, it drifts from the intended state, the drift creates a breach opportunity, and the cycle repeats unless continuous assurance intervenes.
Customer Telemetry Evidence of Daily Drift
Telemetry gathered from Reach’s own customer base over the past year reinforces the survey results. On average, each Reach customer generates 13 drift alerts per day. Of those alerts, 12 correspond to genuine, risk‑prioritized security exposures, with firewalls remaining the predominant source. These figures represent actual gaps between how controls are currently configured and how they ought to be configured according to the organization’s threat profile, confirming that firewall misconfiguration is not a theoretical concern but a daily operational reality.
Leadership Perspectives on the Need for Continuous Assurance
Garrett Hamilton, CEO and Co‑Founder of Reach Security, emphasized that the alignment of market research and customer data tells a clear story: persistent risk resides in firewall misconfiguration. He argued that as networks become more intricate and AI accelerates attack sophistication, periodic audits and manual reviews are no longer adequate; organizations require continuous assurance that controls are configured, enforced, and operating as intended. Jonathan Brucato, Director of Security Operations at ECI—a Reach partner—added that the velocity of change in modern network environments and the rise of AI‑driven attacks have rendered static, point‑in‑time security reviews ineffective. Solutions like Reach provide the visibility and agility needed to detect drift and misconfigurations before they can be exploited.
Core Capabilities of Network Security Assurance
Reach Network Security Assurance continuously validates whether network security controls are configured, prioritized, and enforced as intended across firewalls, SASE, and related enforcement points. Teams can quickly spot overly permissive access, ineffective enforcement, policy conflicts, and controls that no longer satisfy segmentation or least‑privilege goals. The platform analyzes drift through a threat‑informed lens, prioritizing the rules and misconfigurations that adversaries are actually leveraging rather than merely flagging static rule‑hygiene issues. Security teams gain visibility into unused, shadowed, redundant, disabled, unreachable, and overly permissive rules, as well as misconfigurations that create unintended access paths and operational risk. Beyond identification, Reach helps organizations harden and realign controls at operational scale, mapping findings to responsible enforcement points and guiding or automating remediation to shrink the attack surface before drift becomes exploitable.
How the Solution Addresses AI‑Powered Attack Speed
AI‑powered adversaries can now map network topologies, probe exposed services, and test thousands of potential attack paths in minutes—often spotting weaknesses long before defenders are aware they exist. Consequently, the window between a control drifting out of compliance and that weakness being exploited has effectively collapsed. Reach’s AI‑native operations are engineered for this new reality: they provide continuous, real‑time visibility into the state of firewalls and network controls, contextual understanding of how those controls interact, and the ability to rapidly identify and close exploitable openings. By reasoning over the true state of an organization’s defenses and acting with precision, Reach delivers the speed and scale necessary to match AI‑driven threats.
What Organizations Can Achieve with Reach
With Network Security Assurance, organizations can: assess defenses using Reach’s MastermindAI real‑time configuration intelligence; identify and prioritize AI‑exploitable gaps before attackers discover them; harden posture by detecting and correcting drift before it becomes an exploitable misconfiguration; and gain continuous assurance that network security controls remain aligned to security intent. These capabilities enable security teams to reduce risk, maximize the value of existing investments, and maintain a resilient security posture despite the accelerating pace of change and threat evolution.
About Reach Security and Contact Information
Reach Security defines AI‑native exposure management by bridging the gap between identifying security risks and taking action to fix them. The platform uncovers misconfigurations, control weaknesses, and other exposures, then drives prioritized, guided remediation at scale. By integrating with existing security tools, Reach delivers clarity, automation, and operational value in minutes, helping organizations reduce risk and amplify the impact of their current investments. For more information, visit www.reach.security. Press inquiries can be directed to Paula Elliott, PR Managing Director at C8 Consulting Ltd, via email at [email protected].