Systems and methods for protecting network devices by a firewall

A system, comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions programmed to instruct the at least one processor to:
• in response to a request from a client device, establish a network tunnel between the client device and a gateway, the gateway implementing a firewall including firewall rules for selectively blocking and allowing network traffic between the client device and one or more network devices in a private network;
• in response to an update to a policy after establishing the network tunnel, receive a first token;
• and
• in response to receiving the first token, update at least one of the firewall rules in real-time while the network tunnel is active.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions configured to instruct a computing system to:

• in response to a request from a client device, establish a network tunnel between the client device and a gateway, the gateway implementing a firewall including firewall rules for selectively blocking and allowing network traffic between the client device and one or more network devices in a private network;
• in response to an update to a policy after establishing the network tunnel, receive a first token;
• and
• in response to receiving the first token, update at least one of the firewall rules while the network tunnel is active.