Palo Alto Networks Extends Safe Application Enablement and Breach
Prevention from the Network to the Cloud with Enhancements to its
Next-Generation
Security Platform
New PAN-OS
8.0, Aperture Features and Virtual Firewall Models Enable Customers to Safely
Embrace New Cloud Infrastructure; Achieve Security at Speed and Agility of the
Cloud
Palo Alto Networks,
the next-generation security company,
today announced advancements to its Next-Generation
Security Platform that extend the ability for customer
organizations to safely enable applications, including SaaS options, content
and users regardless of location; prevent successful cyberattacks; simplify
security operations; and securely embrace the cloud.
Security demands have evolved as new requirements and risks have been introduced, especially as
organizations expand their IT architecture from traditional networks and data
centers to private and public or hybrid cloud deployments.
The addition of SaaS application usage to the mix, and the need to
secure all these architectures against ever-increasing, sophisticated threats
and adversary techniques being used to gain access to assets and data
regardless of where they are located – the network, in the cloud, or in SaaS
applications – and organizations have a multitude of complex security and
operational challenges to address to prevent cyber breaches and achieve the
cloud speed and agility promise.
Traditional detect-and-respond approaches, cloud-only security capabilities,
and siloed point products offer limited functionality and lack threat context
from the network edge or at the user interface. This makes these options ineffective
and administratively burdensome; causes holes in an organization’s security
posture; and hinders operational agility, especially in cloud deployments.
The natively engineered Palo Alto
Networks Next-Generation Security Platform addresses all these challenges by
delivering rich context from multiple points across all IT environments to
provide consistent levels of visibility, management and security controls regardless
of data location – from the network to the data center and private cloud, in
the public cloud, or within SaaS applications.
Building upon existing
capabilities in the platform, new advancements included in the Palo Alto
Networks platform operating system, PAN-OS® version
8.0, Aperture™ SaaS security service, and
new VM-Series virtual firewall models address security
needs by extending protections from physical networks to the cloud,
further simplifying security operations
and infrastructure, and ultimately helping organizations establish an effective
and consistent security posture.
Palo Alto has integrated more than 70 new cloud and SaaS
features in this next-generation security platform. The PAN-OS 8.0 feature
highlights include the following:
·
Expanded security for public and private clouds, including
optimized workflow automation features and integration with native cloud
services that ensure the same security measures for a customer's physical
environment can be easily applied to Amazon® Web Services, Microsoft® Azure®,
or any other cloud. The cloud capabilities enable secure, scalable and
resilient cloud-centric architectures with easy orchestration and management
for operational agility.
·
New SaaS application security capabilities,
including enhanced visibility and interactive dashboards, new reporting, and
automated features like instant quarantine and data sharing limitations. These
features increase security, real-time monitoring and compliance enforcement
capabilities on cloud-based assets. Additionally, extended application support
(Slack and Secure Data Space), language support (German and Japanese) for DLP
and machine learning, as well as new data centers in Europe (Germany) and Asia
(Singapore), expand global usage and protection options and address regional
data privacy needs.
·
Increased performance and three new VM-Series
virtual firewall models that have been added to the existing virtual firewall
family. The VM-Series, which now includes the new VM-50, VM-500 and VM-700, delivers
industry-leading performance options ranging from 200 Mbps up to an
industry-leading 16 Gbps of firewall throughput with App-ID enabled to deliver
predictable performance in cloud deployments and address a variety of use cases
from virtualized branch office to data center and service provider deployments.
Additional threat prevention,
management and hardware highlights are also available with the introduction of
PAN-OS 8.0. See these related press releases:
PAN-OS
8.0 in the Philippines
According to the 2016
Cloud Readiness Index published by
the Asia Cloud Computing Association, the Philippines ranked #9 but scored only
3.5 in cybersecurity posture to effectively combat cyberattacks. A robust cloud
computing outlook for the Philippines got an even bigger push when the
recently-established Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)
adopted a cloud-first policy, making the Philippines one of the first countries
in the world to do so.
“The advancements made to the latest version of PAN-OS
8.0 address some of the key challenges customers in the Philippines
face in their digital transformation journey. We
provide a holistic approach in support of policies and programs in place to
prevent successful cyberattacks. We help secure cyberspace so cloud computing
can flourish unimpeded and all stakeholders can realize the promises of digital
transformation.”
-
Kelvin Chin, Country Manager of the
Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam
PAN-OS
8.0 is now available globally to customers of Palo Alto Networks with a current
support contract.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
