Appliance Deployment Featured Article

Network security company Palo Alto (News - Alert) Networks has announced the availability of the Palo Alto Networks WF-500 appliance, saying that it is the first platform designed to deliver a private cloud solution for timely and thorough detection, analysis and prevention of advanced persistent threats (APTs).

Customers who cannot access a public cloud options are expected to benefit from this latest offering. The Palo Alto Networks WF-500 appliance provides the same sandbox detection and analysis capabilities of the company’s public cloud-based WildFire subscription offering but on a customer-owned platform, according to company officials.

The Palo Alto Networks WF-500 appliance comes with full prevention capabilities and can be implemented in an inline Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall.

This “closed loop” prevention solution includes private and public cloud deployment options. In addition, it also includes thorough detection and analysis of all network traffic. Company officials added that it is capable of automatically blocking malware and APTs with the help of Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall.

“Quickly identifying and eliminating previously unknown threats across all applications is key to protecting an organization from today’s advanced threats; only Palo Alto Networks offers its customers a public or private cloud deployment choice and the closed loop capabilities to most efficiently and effectively stop APTs,” said Lee Klarich, senior vice president of product management at Palo Alto Networks.

With Palo Alto Networks’ innovative platform, enterprises, service providers, and government entities are able to secure their networks. Company officials said that the company’s next-generation firewalls, deployed at customer sites, flags doubtful files and these files are collected by Palo Alton Networks’ WildFire service and uploaded for analysis.

If Palo Alto Networks systems and experts find a piece of malware or an APT (News - Alert), a signature is generated, which is automatically sent to subscribing WildFire customers’ next-generation firewalls for proactive protection.

The public WF-500 is designed to provide protection against newly detected malware and its variants; traffic that malware generates, including unique domain queries; and command-and-control and domain name system (DNS) traffic.

The same benefits are offered by the private WF-500 appliance installed on a customers’ network, allowing them to detect, analyze, and eradicate suspected threats in a private cloud under their control.

Earlier in March, the company noted that its total revenue for the fiscal second quarter grew 70 percent year-over- year to $96.5 million, compared with $56.7 million in the fiscal second quarter of 2012.