Month: March 2017

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PAN-OS 8.0: New Hardware Enables Powerful Security Performance Without Compromise

Three key trends are driving the need for increased performance and capacity requirements on security appliances:

  1. Data center consolidation, leading to increased bandwidth requirements.
  2. Increasing share of encrypted traffic, which must be secured.
  3. Consumption of hybrid cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications driving north-south traffic growth.

At the same time, organizations are required to rethink how to protect the network from a new, more sophisticated class of advanced threats that evade traditional security mechanisms.

Our latest release, PAN-OS 8.0, introduces new hardware appliances that do a lot better than the usual compromise between performance and applying next-generation security to all traffic, including encrypted traffic. With these new appliances, you can now prevent successful cyberattacks everywhere your data resides – from your largest data centers down to your smallest branches. The new appliances include:

PA-5200 Series

The PA-5200 Series – PA-5260, PA-5250 and PA-5220 – prevent threats and safely enable applications in high-performance network deployments, including Internet Gateway, Data Center, and Service Provider (SP) environments. Secure your network with predictable performance and advanced visibility and control of applications, users and content at  throughput speeds of up to 72 Gbps.
Key Features:
  • High-performance appliances deliver up to 72 Gbps (App-ID) and 30 Gbps (Threat Prevention)
  • High SSL session capacity with up to 32M sessions and 3.2M SSL-decrypt sessions
  • Flexibility in I/O with high-density 10G, 40G and 100G support
  • Front-to-back airflow support 


PA-800 Series

The PA-800 Series – PA-850 and PA-820 – is designed to secure enterprise branch offices and retail locations.
Key Features:
  • High-performance appliances up to 1.9 Gbps (App-ID) and 780 Mbps (Threat Prevention)
  • Fast management plane, leveraging multiple CPU cores and 8GB memory
  • Hardware resiliency, leveraging redundant power
  • Flexible I/O for today’s and tomorrow’s network needs with up to 10G interfaces
  • Simplified deployments of large numbers of firewalls through the USB port

PA-220

Built in a compact desktop footprint, the PA-220 brings next-generation firewall capabilities to your smallest branch offices and retail locations.
Key Features:
  • Built-in resiliency with dual power adapters
  • Complete high availability support: active/active and active/passive
  • Passive and silent cooling to eliminate noise and increase reliability
  • Desktop footprint with high port density
  • Simplified deployments of large numbers of firewalls through the USB port

Architected to handle ever-increasing amounts of application-, user- and device-generated data, our next-generation firewalls natively classify all traffic, inclusive of applications, threats and content, and tie the traffic to the user, regardless of location or device type. The applications, content and users are then used as the basis of your security policies to safely enable applications and prevent modern threats, both known and unknown.

With our expanded portfolio of appliances, customers can now address an even wider variety of use cases with different form factors and performance variants to fit diverse deployment needs.

Learn more about our new family of breakthrough performance hardware.

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[Palo Alto Networks Research Center]

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Incident Response – Being Prepared for the Worst-Case Scenario

It is no secret that in today’s world, information is more at risk than ever before. Unfortunately, we now must deal with the realization that it’s not if an attempted breach will occur on your network, but rather when. Despite an organization’s best efforts to secure networks and information, human error and system vulnerabilities will continue to exist. Considering that reality, organizations must be sure to prepare an actionable plan for when the worst-case scenarios play themselves out.

Incident response is the process of establishing a plan for responding to these worst-case scenarios. The ability of an organization to react to and contain incidents in a prompt and efficient manner is equally as important as the tools and procedures that are put in place to prevent such scenarios. This means not only having the tools in place to detect potential threats, but also having the personnel on hand to respond and react efficiently.

Who needs incident response?
In short: everyone. All businesses have intellectual property, personally identifiable information (PII), financials or some form of sensitive information that can be dangerous when in the wrong hands. Establishing an actionable plan will result in faster response times and minimize damages as a result of an incident.

The potential risks your organization faces as the result of poorly responding to an incident are vast and may vary based on industry. That said, below are some of the more common risks to consider when evaluating the value of your organization’s incident response plan:

Operational risks. An incident such as a system breach could result in critical systems and applications becoming inoperative. This may lead to a loss of core business functions (such as a production line being shut down) as well as potential security vulnerabilities.

Reputational risks. Responding poorly to an incident can have severely negative impacts on your organization’s public image, as well as in the eyes of your current and potential customers/clients.

Compliance risks. In some instances, an incident may result in an inability to meet regulatory requirements and introduces the potential for fines and/or penalties from governing bodies.

Financial risks. All the previously mentioned risks have the potential to result in negative financial impact to your organization. These, along with the potential for lost assets, the cost of repairs, legal fees and other unexpected costs should be considered.

Determining the components of a successful incident response plan will vary from business to business, but at its core should deliver the following:

  • An executive commitment and endorsement of the incident response initiative
  • An Incident Response Team (IRT) comprised of members with varying areas of expertise ranging from IT to legal and communications
  • A defined communication plan
  • A plan to support, maintain and test the incident response plan on a regular basis
  • An organized, structured approach that clearly defines the roles and responsibilities for all parties involved
  • A clearly stated definition of what an incident means to your organization and how incident response aligns with existing organizational security efforts, such as business continuity and disaster recovery plans
  • A well-defined plan on how to monitor and analyze potential threats to the environment
  • An operation plan that defines how incidents are declared and initial steps for information gathering
  • A post-incident process for lessons learned and process improvement

A successful incident response program should align with standards set forth by the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

Joe Gates, Senior Security & Controls Advisor, The Mako Group LLC

[ISACA Now Blog]

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Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 Vulnerability Research February 2017 Disclosures

As part of Unit 42’s ongoing threat research, we can now disclose that Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers have discovered two code execution vulnerabilities affecting Adobe Flash (APSB17-04) that were addressed in Adobe’s monthly security update release:

  1. CVE-2017-2982: Tao Yan
  2. CVE-2017-2996: Tao Yan

For current customers with a Threat Prevention subscription, Palo Alto Networks has also released IPS signatures providing proactive protection from these vulnerabilities. Traps, Palo Alto Networks advanced endpoint solution, can block memory corruption based exploits of this nature.

Palo Alto Networks is a regular contributor to vulnerability research in Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Google Android and other ecosystems. By proactively identifying these vulnerabilities, developing protections for our customers, and sharing the information with the security community, we are removing weapons used by attackers to threaten users, and compromise enterprise, government, and service provider networks.

[Palo Alto Networks Research Center]

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