A method and system for distributing and enforcing security policies is provided. A firewall agent executing at a host computer system that is to be protected receives security policies for the enforcement engines responsible for enforcing the security policies on the host computer system. A security policy has rules that each provide a condition and action to be performed when the condition is satisfied. A rule also has a rule type that is used by the distribution system to identify the security components that are responsible for enforcing the rules. To distribute the security policies that have been received at a host computer system, the firewall agent identifies to which enforcement engine a rule applies based in part on rule type. The firewall agent then distributes the rule to the identified enforcement engine, which then enforces the rule.