Firewalls are an integral part of every e-commerce company. The auditor decides to gain assurance on the functioning of a firewall that the client had implemented late in the last quarter of the year.

Required:

a. What is a firewall? What are the objectives to be accomplished by using a firewall?

b. What kind of reports should a firewall prepare for IT management to help IT management monitor its control environment?

c. The auditor wants to determine that

(1) the firewall has been configured effectively, 

(2) the firewall is working effectively. 

Develop an audit program to test these two objectives.