Who is Palo Alto Networks?

Matt Blackwell -

History

Palo Alto Networks is a leading  cybersecurity company that provides network security solutions to enterprises, service providers and government agencies around the globe. The company headquarters is located in Santa Clara California.  Palo Alto Networks was founded by a former  Israeli-Amercan Checkpoint and Netscreen engineer Nir Zuk back in 2005.

In 2007 Palo Alto Networks produced and shipped a new type of firewall, the worlds first "next-generation firewall"  publications were released suggesting that this new breed of firewall could inspect all seven layers of the network stack whilst providing IPS features, which was unlike traditional port and protocol  based firewalls  that were on the market at the time.

What services can Palo Alto Networks provide?

Palo Alto Networks have created a Security Operating Platform which works together by preventing successful cyberattacks through automation. The platform is broken into different areas which includes:

  • Network Security:  Helping you adopt best practices using app, user and content-based policies to minimise opportunities for attack.
  • Advanced Endpoint Protection: Blocking exploits, ransomware, malware and file-less attacks to minimise infected endpoints and servers.
  • Cloud security: Speeding up multi-cloud deployments, with continuous compliance validation, through deep integrations with native cloud services and automation tools.
  • Cloud-Delivered Security Services: Allowing you to confidently automate threat identification and prevention everywhere.
  • Cortex platform: Letting you consume security innovations quickly using ecosystem partner apps that integrate tightly into the platform.

Conclusion

Palo Alto Networks is without doubt a global cybersecurity leader.  I've worked in the network security industry for the last 18 years,  designing, implementing and supporting  multi vendor firewall technologies, including Cisco ASA, Juniper Netscreens, Checkpoint and more, I can honestly say that working with Palo Alto firewalls has never disappointed as they offer a very comprehensive feature set along with a intuitive management interface and ease of operation.  

On November 13th 2020 Palo Alto Networks was positioned as a leader in Gartners Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls for the ninth consecutive time.  They now boast the industry's first ML Powered Next Generation Firewall which now has over 70 new capabilities in PAN-OS 10.