Palo Alto Networks Ignite Brings Technology Partner Program Updates, Innovations
Prisma Cloud continues to push the industry forward with this next evolution of cloud security.
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The Palo Alto Networks Technology Partner Program updates include:
Improved automation, with integration development processes, flexible learning, automated validation and qualification.
Programmatic engagement, fostering continuous innovation, flexible learning and go-to-market (GTM) support.
Unveiled in August, a new portal with a self-guided approach to manage the partnership, a simplified application process, an intuitive onboarding experience and real-time integration status updates.
A new four-tiered program structure, consisting of elite, premier, select and self-service partners, will enable partners to grow and expand their businesses through Palo Alto Networks.
“The most notable enhancement in the program is the tiering structure,” said Palo Alto Networks’ Tana Rosenblatt. “Partners are selected and invited to join. Selection is based upon market research and assessment, whether the technology is complementary to the Palo Alto Networks portfolio of products and a product management board review for final evaluation. The self-service tier provides a pathway for emerging security partners to engage with Palo Alto Networks as they continue to grow their business. Partner program success is based on customer success, innovation and growth.”
Partner perspective came into play when formulating the program updates, she said.
“We did a lot of partner outreach, verbal surveys, research on partner program attributes, assessment of success metrics, what works, what doesn’t,” Rosenblatt said.
The Cortex XMDR Specialization will enable partners globally to combine Cortex XDR, Palo Alto Networks extended detection and response solution, with their managed service offerings to help customers streamline security operations center (SOC) operations and mitigate cyber threats. To achieve specialization status, partner organizations must have Cortex XDR-certified SOC analysts/threat hunters on staff and available 24×7. Partners seeking this distinction must also complete both technical and sales enablement, and specialization examinations.
Tim Junio is senior vice president of products for Cortex. He said the specialization is in response to feedback from the market and the “unmet potential of new capabilities we’ve developed.”
“As we’ve been rolling out new functionalities for XDR, including stitching new types of data, customers are often asking us what do we do regarding the new kinds of events that you’re able to observe, the new types of incidents that you’re escalating for our SOC analysts,” he said. “If it isn’t something that’s currently part of the workflow, they’re looking for Palo Alto Networks to help with guidance on what to do next. We’re a product company and even though as much as we can we want to offer supplemental professional services that help bridge that gap, we can’t do it all the time for all of our customers. And that’s where partners come in and can help with the end-to-end communication for a customer.”
The NextWave MSP includes nearly 300 partners around the world that use security technology from Palo Alto Networks to provide managed security services. MSP provides partners with the tools, training, incentives and resources to accelerate the adoption of Palo Alto Networks-based managed services. Members of the MSP are called MSSP Innovators and are required to meet specific performance, enablement and customer engagement requirements.
Palo Alto Networks has fully integrated its next-generation CASB into its Prisma Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and all form factors of the company’s next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) to provide the following benefits:
● See and secure all SaaS and on-premises applications automatically. Machine learning (ML) enables CASB to automatically identify new or unsanctioned SaaS applications as they become popular, classify them and apply appropriate security policies.
● Accurately protect sensitive data in real-time with enterprise data loss prevention (DLP) now powered by ML, advanced optical character recognition (OCR) and natural language processing (NLP).
● Stop known and unknown threats with a complete cloud-delivered security platform.
Anand Oswal is Palo Alto Networks’ senior vice president of products for firewall as a platform. He said existing CASB solutions can’t protect today’s hybrid environment.
“You have incomplete visibility into applications and data,” he said. “If you think of legacy CASB, they only protect web applications or protocols HTTP/HTTPS. Secondly, you really have almost zero to no support for collaboration applications. That doesn’t work in an environment where you’re constantly adding new applications on the go. There’s also inaccurate data protection. They rely on old techniques … and not using modern AI and ML techniques.”
Palo Alto Networks said Prisma Cloud 3.0 is the industry’s first integrated platform to “shift security left,” improving organizations’ entire cloud security by reducing security risk at runtime. With a customer base that already includes 77% of the Fortune 100, the cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) now also offers organizations cloud code security to embed critical protections in the development process, agentless security to complement existing agent-based protection, and cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) for Microsoft Azure.
Ankur Shah is Palo Alto Networks’ senior vice president of products for Prisma Cloud.
“Customers are asking, ‘How do we secure our cloud infrastructure as well as cloud application security?’” he said. “The industry would have typically 15-20 different tools to solve this problem holistically. Instead, we built Prisma Cloud to deliver the most comprehensive cloud-native security application platform covering the entire application life cycle, spanning your code security, infrastructure security using password management, workload protection for detecting vulnerabilities in your applications across those containers that are serverless, and network security.”
Palo Alto Networks WildFire cloud-based threat analysis is now available as a standalone product. Powered by crowd-sourced intelligence from more than 80,000 customers, this new availability allows organizations to incorporate WildFire’s capabilities across a diverse set of use cases, including securing the online portals where end users increasingly interact with businesses and governments — preventing them from becoming malware delivery vectors.
Ratnesh Saxena is Palo Alto Networks’ senior director of product management.
“WildFire processes over 10 million unique samples every day, creating a rich repository of malware samples that add up to billions annually,” he said. “With broad visibility across networks, IaaS, SaaS, PaaS and endpoint, WildFire delivers world-class detection efficacy and consistent protection across your organization.”
Following a 188% increase in cloud cases over the past three years, Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 announced it is doubling down on its cloud incident response practice to provide an optimized approach for each stage of the cloud incident life cycle. This will result in faster recovery for impacted organizations, it said.
Specialized cloud digital forensics and incident response teams made up of cloud experts use cloud security products like Cortex XDR, Cortex Xpanse, Prisma Cloud and new DFIR methods to identify attack vectors, extent of access and at-risk data. They also provide guidance for remediation measures and control enhancements, ensuring each incident is completely contained.
Wendi Whitmore is Unit 42 team leader.
“In the event of a cloud incident, our teams stay involved as long as necessary to ensure it is completely contained and everything is back to normal,” she said. “From there, we help develop playbooks and new processes to ensure a similar event doesn’t happen again. And should you need it, we’re available as an expert witness to articulate what happened, why it happened and who was impacted.”
Following a 188% increase in cloud cases over the past three years, Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 announced it is doubling down on its cloud incident response practice to provide an optimized approach for each stage of the cloud incident life cycle. This will result in faster recovery for impacted organizations, it said.
Specialized cloud digital forensics and incident response teams made up of cloud experts use cloud security products like Cortex XDR, Cortex Xpanse, Prisma Cloud and new DFIR methods to identify attack vectors, extent of access and at-risk data. They also provide guidance for remediation measures and control enhancements, ensuring each incident is completely contained.
Wendi Whitmore is Unit 42 team leader.
“In the event of a cloud incident, our teams stay involved as long as necessary to ensure it is completely contained and everything is back to normal,” she said. “From there, we help develop playbooks and new processes to ensure a similar event doesn’t happen again. And should you need it, we’re available as an expert witness to articulate what happened, why it happened and who was impacted.”
IGNITE 2021 — Palo Alto Networks, at its Ignite ’21 conference, unveiled Technology Partner Program (TPP) updates and new innovations, including its Cortex eXtended Managed Detection and Response (XMDR) Specialization.
About 26,000 registrants from more than 100 countries are convening at this week’s virtual Palo Alto Networks Ignite.
TPP features 900 integrations across network and cloud security, as well as security operations. This includes integrations that are available in the Cortex XSOAR Marketplace.
Tana Rosenblatt is Palo Alto Networks’ vice president of technology partnerships. She said the new program enhancements provide a streamlined support structure. They also offer new resources and tools to help partners drive the adoption and integration of Palo Alto Networks into customers’ environments.
Palo Alto Networks has focused TPP solely on technical integrations it does with tech partners, she said.
Palo Alto Networks’ Tana Rosenblatt
“That said, the channel partners can take advantage of integrations to meet in the middle to create specialized offerings,” Rosenblatt said. “Examples of this include the Arrow-Palo Alto Networks-Nutanix campaign or the CloudHarmonics-Palo Alto Networks-Okta campaign, etc.”
XMDR Partner Specialization
The Cortex XMDR partner specialization combines Palo Alto Networks‘ Cortex XDR 3.0 solution with managed service offerings from more than 15 partners to improve customers’ security operations. The specialization is part of the NextWave Managed Service Program (MSP). Palo Alto Networks designed it to enable partners to capitalize on the growing customer need to detect, investigate and respond to cyber threats across their endpoint, network and cloud assets.
Also during Palo Alto Networks Ignite, the company unveiled its next-generation Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB). In addition, it announced Prisma Cloud 3.0, an integrated platform to secure the full application life cycle.
Lee Klarich is Palo Alto Networks’ chief product officer.
Palo Alto Networks’ Lee Klarich
“With the en masse shift to a hybrid workforce and rapid adoption of the cloud, the way work gets done has changed,” he said. “SaaS collaboration apps are becoming key to a productive hybrid workforce, but SaaS security has not caught up. With the introduction of our next-generation CASB, we’re the first to recognize and embrace this shift — and solve it.”
Prisma Cloud continues to push the industry forward with this next evolution of cloud security, Klarich said.
All of this is part of Palo Alto Networks’ broader focus on delivering consistent network security across the campus environments, data center, branch office and full remote workforce in a way that is consistent and enabling of the workforce, he said. And that workforce is increasingly working from anywhere.
Next War Will Be Cyber
Nikesh Arora is Palo Alto Networks’ CEO and chairman. He said cyberattacks can now be way bigger and more widespread than you could ever imagine.
Palo Alto Networks’ Nikesh Arora
“The next war is going to be cyber war,” he said. “You won’t actually see missiles flying across country. You’ll see countries being brought down by cyber activity.”
Palo Alto Networks‘ goal is to make sure “we’re tackling the next problem that’s going to come around the corner so you can go do what you need to get done while we focus on what’s next,” Arora said.
“We have 12,000 people around the world,” he said. “They’re constantly scanning, trying to figure out where the next attack’s going to come from. We’re constantly vigilant on behalf of our customers. And we’re trying to make sure that we are the evergreen cybersecurity company you can rely on in the future today to make sure that your tomorrow is safe with us today.”
Scroll through our slideshow above for more from Palo Alto Networks Ignite.
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