Palo Alto Networks is upgrading its firewall software to enhance application filtering.Palo Alto Networks is looking to distance itself from competing firewall
vendors with new software that enhances application control and classification.
The companys PAN-OS 2.0 software, announced April 28, leverages and expands
on the vendors App-ID technology to increase the users ability to dynamically
classify and block applications. Enterprises can now filter applications
according to a number of criteria to create policies, including risk level;
categories such as collaboration and media applications; behaviors like file
transferring and port hopping; and technology, such as whether the application
is browser-based or peer-to-peer.
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Its got this iTunes-like interface that enables you to select multiple
kinds of characteristics to find the applications you are looking for, said
Chris King, director of marketing at Palo Alto Networks. "You can say, 'I
want to deny all the peer-to-peer that's prone to malware' ... or maybe, 'I
want to allow all collaboration applications that don't tunnel under
applications.' So there are all these variables in addition to the name of the
app and the class of application."
The company has also added a new user-behavior summary as well as expanded
Active Directory support and new Captive Portal features to improve visibility
and control of applications regardless of client platform, officials at Palo
Alto Networks said.
The company competes with a number of firewall vendors, such as Check Point
Software and Juniper Networks. Traditional firewalls, King explained, lack the
level of application visibility and control his company is looking to offer.
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A lot of the firewall technology was developed in the mid '90s, [when] port
did equal protocol, and it did equal application, King said. But were now in
a situation where everybodys either using Port 80 or Port 443, or they are
hopping around, and so port has ceased to become anything meaningful. ... So I
think what were doing with this release is were continuing to push our
differentiation by making a lot of our information about the applications that
we provide visibility into and control of more usable by the customer.
PAN-OS 2.0 is slated to be available in mid-May. The company will unveil the
technology at the Interop Las Vegas 2008 conference.