Check ID: networkfirewall_multi_az
Provider: AWS
Service: networkfirewall
Severity: HIGH
Categories: resilience
Resource type: AwsNetworkFirewallFirewall

What this check verifies

AWS Network Firewall firewalls are assessed for multi-AZ deployment, expecting subnet mappings in more than one Availability Zone. A configuration with only one subnet mapping indicates a single-AZ firewall.

Risk

Single-AZ firewalls are a single point of failure. An AZ outage can drop or blackhole traffic, degrading availability, or prompt route changes that bypass inspection, exposing confidentiality and integrity to unfiltered access, data exfiltration, and lateral movement.

Recommendation

Deploy firewalls across >=2 AZs with a dedicated subnet in each used AZ. Maintain per-AZ, symmetric routing to the local endpoint to preserve stateful inspection. Apply defense in depth and automate drift controls and AZ failover tests to sustain resilience.

Remediation

aws network-firewall associate-subnets --firewall-arn <FIREWALL_ARN> --subnet-mappings SubnetId=<SUBNET_ID_IN_DIFFERENT_AZ>

References

Where this check fires

This check runs on every scheduled scan against your AWS account. Findings appear at Cloud Security → Findings filterable by Check ID = networkfirewall_multi_az. To re-evaluate after a fix, hit Run now on the account’s schedule under Cloud Security → Schedules — the next scan re-checks this control and marks the finding fixed or keeps it persistent.
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