Rapid Escalation in Cybersecurity: PJ Networks’ 1-Hour SLA for Firewall Issues

When it comes to a rapid escalation in cybersecurity – particularly when critical network outages are involved – timing is everything. PJ Networks know how critical this is, so they have a 1-hour SLA for all firewall issues that require immediate IT support. So today I want to take you through our process for responding to urgent incidents such as that — and I’m going to take you through the 4 critical steps that we follow: Triage Protocol – Rapid Diagnostics – Patch & Patch – And Post-mortem.

1. Triage Protocol

First bucket – as soon as you see a firewall problem we start our triage. Think of triage as the ER in a hospital — a quick check to figure out how bad the problem is and which resources are needed immediately.

Here’s how it works:

• Realtime Alert System: Alerting the escalation team as soon as any breakout in the firewall is seen by monitoring system.
• Severity Assessment: We quickly assess how much it is hurting the impact—Is all traffic blocked? Is sensitive data at risk? Or is the slowdown only a pullback, partial?
• Priority Assignment: We assign the priority level according to the severity. As with blocking out the sun, the most critical outages go to the top of the queue.
• Communication inception: We instantly communicate the status of your issues to your IT team and any other relevant party and provide an approximate resolution time.

Why is this important? After all, without prompt and accurate triage, the entire incident response can lag, and bigger headaches can develop later on.

2. Rapid Diagnostics

Now that the problem has been raised to the critical point, we go leaping into a fast diagnostic without scrutiny. Our aim is just as simple: identify the root cause quickly so we can take solid actions to address it.

The main landmarks in  diagnostics are:

• Collect Logs: We collect all firewall logs, system alerts, or anything that seems fishy prior to the outage.
• Traffic Analysis: We monitor live traffic streams for abnormalities, attacks, and misconfigurations.
• Configuration Verification: Now and then, a poorly configured rule may have unpredictable blocking or create a vulnerability.
• Threat Intel Cross-Check: We cross-check if there are recent threat reports or known exploits matching the symptoms.

Prioritizing these very things, our team is able to identify problems faster—sometimes in just that all-important hour. That allows us to get off to a running start with a plan to fix it.

3. Patch & Patch

Diagnostics complete, now it’s patch & patch time — fixing or installing security updates that plug the hole or reset the firewall to its normal operation.

Here’s what we focus on:

• Implement the Latest Hotfixes: If a common security loophole is found across multiple firewall models, we rollout these updates on your firewalls with a hotfix.
• Configuration Tweaks: We modify a rule set or firewall setting to prevent false blocking or a security hole.
• System Reboots: I’ve had a quick reboot or a service restart clear up errors or hung processes on occasion.
• Testing & Validation: We thoroughly test whether the firewall is solid before we close the incident.

Such a phase needs to be accurate: as we don’t want to squash the old bug but create new ones. It depends on your network’s security.

4. Post-mortem

Once the firewall is secured again, the work isn’t done. We commit to a robust post-mortem to understand and do better.

What’s involved?

• Incident Review: We walk through events—how quickly symptoms materialized, triage and diagnostics played out, and if the response fell in line with our 1h SLA.
• Root Cause Analysis (RCA): An examination of why the problem occurred and whether it was a software bug, human error, or malicious attack.
• Preventative Actions: We suggest, or will take actions to, prevent recurrence based on RCA.
• Client Feedback & Reporting: We provide you with an easy to understand report that covers both the lessons learned from your event and what come next.

This is creating trust and peace of mind — proving that we’re not just putting out fires but creating a stronger defense.

Why Upgrade to the Higher-Tier SLA from PJ Networks?

You’re working with sensitive data or simply can’t afford downtime and our 1-hour SLA for firewall issues changes the game. A change of support level means:

• Can guarantee a response within 60 minutes on urgent firewall and network issues.
• Access to dedicated team experts trained on rapid escalation of firewall.
• Continuous updates as the situation progresses.
• Pro-active communication to keep your business ‘in the loop.

Believe me, when your firewall is on the blink, every second is precious. The fast growing PJ Networks / Urgent IT support service makes a mad dash to support you and not leave you in the dark.

Are you prepared to defend your network with high-speed, high-fidelity firewall incident response? We’re here. Because in cybersecurity emergencies, the fastest wins.

It’s worth remembering that for businesses which are serious about cybersecurity, the ease and speed at which the service can escalate is often time sensitive and a fast tracked escalation with a robust 1-hour SLA can make the difference between getting the urgent IT support you need quickly or not at all.