Dallas Data Center

The network security company Palo Alto Networks™ has accomplished the 1,000^th enterprise customer milestone, thus, meaning the company has won leading Fortune 1000 organizations such as Qualcomm and DTE Energy.  Palo Alto Networks has vastly extended their technology and market leadership through their new next-generation firewall software and their customer acquisition.

As stated by Palo Alto Networks vice president of worldwide marketing, Rene Bonvanie, “Palo Alto Networks is at an inflection point in terms of market penetration and growth, as more enterprise companies conclude that they need next-generation firewalls in their network security infrastructure.  Since we offer the industry’s only next-generation firewall to classify and control applications within the firewall, instead of using clumsy bolt-on functionality, Palo Alto Networks is the clear choice for companies that want to enforce complete network security with the best available price performance.”

According to their press release employees continue to rely upon Enterprise 2.0 applications without knowing that these types of application, such as social networking sites, have associated risks that can cause viruses, data leaks and much more.  When this happens there is not much the companies IT managers can do to block such applications except to implement usage guidelines that are customized around that organization.

With Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls companies can now “combine three identification technologies to provide the necessary visibility and control over applications, users and content.  All of the required functionality resides in the firewall, such that a single device can accurately identify applications, scan content to stop threats and prevent data leakage.” (Palo Alto Networks, 2010)

New features to the PAN-OS 3.1 software include (information provided by Palo Alto Networks press release):

·         App-ID has a new function-based hierarchy (versus a flat structure) for better control over application enablement.  This means organizations can easily enable an application and disable certain functions – like enabling Facebook while disabling Facebook apps.  This new hierarchical structure in PAN-OS 3.1 allows more powerful, finer-grained policies that are easier to manage.

·         User-ID now offers pervasive coverage with support for LDAP directories such as eDirectory and OpenLDAP, in addition to Microsoft Active Directory, so IT managers can link application traffic to specific users and groups – not just IP addresses.  User-ID also now features an API for integration with other repositories.  User-ID is unique in the firewall market in its ability to provide enterprises with both visibility and policy control of users and groups.

·         Content-ID offers better protection with daily threat signature releases as well as the ability to customize threat signatures for specific applications and vulnerabilities.  Additionally, because threat developers continue to exploit the Web 2.0 movement, Palo Alto Networks has added protections against JavaScript and HTML viruses to Content-ID in PAN-OS 3.1.  As a result, Content-ID is a more powerful, real-time threat prevention engine that detects and blocks a wide range of threats, limits unauthorized transfer of files and data, and controls non-work relater Web surfing.

To learn more about the PAN-OS 3.1 CLICK HERE and please feel free to contact us for your technology needs.