Day: September 15, 2015

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Extending the Next-Gen Security Platform to SaaS

Today we are very excited to announce the availability of Aperture, a new SaaS security offering based on technology we acquired from CirroSecure in May 2015. As the latest enhancement to the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Security Platform, Aperture helps organizations safely enable sanctioned SaaS applications, such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Salesforce.com.

Data residing within enterprise-enabled SaaS applications is not visible to an organization’s network perimeter. Aperture can connect directly to sanctioned SaaS applications to provide data classification, sharing/permission visibility, and threat detection within the application. This provides unparalleled visibility into these applications, allowing organizations to inspect content for data risk violations, and control access to shared data via a contextual policy.

Aperture builds upon the existing SaaS visibility and granular control capabilities of the Next-Generation Security Platform provided through App-IDTM with detailed SaaS-based reporting and granular control of SaaS access. Adding visibility and control within the SaaS applications using Aperture provides a full end-to-end security solution without any additional hardware, software, or network changes required. Thanks to complete visibility across all user, folder and file activity, you’re no longer speculating about what’s happening with these applications. You know exactly what’s happening.

Key features of Aperture include:

  • Complete visibility across all user, folder and file activity – Helps organizations transition from a position of speculation to one of knowing what is happening at any given point in time.
  • Retroactive analysis and control of data and threat exposure – Enforcement dating back to the creation of the SaaS account itself.
  • Deep content inspection and usage analytics – Quickly classify data and determine if there are any data risks or compliance-related policy violations.
  • Granular, context-aware policy control – Drive the enforcement and quarantine of folders and data as soon as a violation occurs.
  • Advanced threat protection – Block known malware, and identify and block unknown malware.

Take the time to learn more about Aperture and see how it can secure your SaaS applications.

[Palo Alto Networks Blog]

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How to Battle Hackers on an Even Plane

In the movie The Untouchables, a hit man pulls a knife to stab Sean Connery, then Connery pulls a shotgun on the hit man. The lesson from this scene is do not bring a knife to a gunfight.

A lot of corporate IT security staff must not have seen this movie. They are bringing knives to the data security fight while hackers bring guns, cannons, tanks and jet fighters.

With increasingly clever malware and phishing tactics, hackers are snagging users login credentials at a frightening pace and gaining access to networks. It can be as easy as exploiting a security hole in a web browser while the user is surfing the web to seize credentials and access privileged services.

While hackers poke, prod and probe networks every hour of the day looking for weaknesses, most corporate IT staff only review access privileges semiannually, quarterly or, if they are particularly diligent, monthly. The reviews are often perfunctory affairs that do not offer much in the way of detection or prevention.

That is not even bringing a knife to a gun fight; that is like remaining at the scene of the crime until the police arrive. Hackers have little fear of getting caught. The hacker who infiltrated Anthem’s customer database was not caught at all; Anthem did not detect the theft until 7 months later.

All of this responsibility does not necessarily have to fall to the corporate IT function. They are doing the best they can with what they have. If IT had to constantly examine and recertify user access with their current access management systems, they would not have time to do anything else. Their systems are typically a patchwork of manual or minimally automated security functions native to individual applications and databases. They do not exist in an integrated data security framework that enables IT to monitor usage of all key resources.

IT does not stand a chance of preventing more Anthem-level data losses until companies automate and analyze. Automating data extraction and cleansing provides a constant stream of user data. Analytical applications spot orphan accounts and irregular usage as they occur, not 7 or more months later. Arming IT with this kind of access management systems mean they are not going into the gunfight with a knife. It means they are ending the fight because the other side knows it cannot win.

Read Chris Sullivan’s recent ISACA Journal article:
“Accelerating Access Management to the Speed of Hacks,” ISACA Journal, volume 5, 2015.

[ISACA Journal Blog]

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2015 Global Partner Award Winners: Why We Partner With Palo Alto Networks

A few weeks ago at our annual Sales Kickoff, we recognized five partners as our 2015 Global Partner Award Winners. While at the event, we grabbed some time with these best of the best partners for 2015 and asked them to talk about the value of their partnership with Palo Alto Networks. Here’s what they had to say:

 

[Palo Alto Networks Blog]

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