DETERMINING SIMILARITY BETWEEN SECURITY RULES BASED ON WEIGHTED COMPARISONS OF THEIR RULE PARAMETERS

First and second security rules are accessed in a configuration file. Comparison points for comparing the first and second security rules are determined. Each comparison point identifies respective rule parameters of the first and second security rules. Respective weights are assigned to the comparison points. For each comparison point, the respective rule parameters are compared against each other to produce a corresponding comparison score indicative of a level similarity. Each comparison score is weighted by the weight assigned to the comparison point corresponding to the comparison score. The weighted comparison scores are combined into a total score indicative of an overall level of similarity between the first and second security rules.