Palo Alto Networks introduces Prisma Access 2.0 to securely enable remote workforces

Palo Alto Networks announced the release of Prisma® Access 2.0 to securely enable work-from-anywhere with the industry’s most complete cloud-delivered security platform. As work continues to change and needs to be done securely everywhere, with no compromise on speed, security or performance, Prisma Access 2.0 introduces critical enhancements, including self-healing infrastructure for optimal experience, ML-powered security to help prevent attacks in real time, cloud SWG capabilities for a secure web gateway regardless of user location, and a reimagined cloud management experience.

2020 fueled a massive cloud adoption to accommodate the rapid embracement of work-from-home. While enterprises are challenged to secure users, applications and data that are now everywhere, current cloud-delivered security offerings provide limited application coverage and inadequate protections: 53% of all remote workforce threats are for non-web apps,* so solutions that only protect web applications leave organizations exposed to threats.

Prisma Access has taken a fundamentally different approach, overcoming these limitations by protecting all application traffic — not just web-based applications — with complete, best-in-class security from a single cloud-delivered platform while ensuring high-performance access and optimized user experience.

The Prisma Access 2.0 release extends this vision further and resets the bar for cloud-delivered security. It does so while providing 10 times more throughput than other solutions for a faster remote access connection and 4.3 million security updates per day — about 25 times more than the closest competitor — to help organizations rest assured their users and data are secure.

Prisma Access 2.0 key performance, security and management enhancements include the following:

• New cloud management experience: Prisma Access 2.0 ensures the best possible security outcomes by introducing a cloud-based management experience that leapfrogs the competition by providing real-time security updates and best practices.
• New autonomous Digital Experience Management (DEM): Prisma Access 2.0 can enable a self-healing infrastructure that automatically remediates network problems, helping to ensure an exceptional digital experience for remote workers.
• New ML-powered security: Prisma Access 2.0 uses inline machine learning to prevent unknown, zero-day attacks in real time. It also uses machine learning to analyze vast amounts of telemetry data to make automated security policy recommendations — improving security faster than security teams would be able to react.
• New cloud secure web gateway (SWG) capability: Palo Alto Networks has added an explicit proxy to the Prisma Access Cloud SWG — so customers can easily migrate from legacy proxy-based solutions to a complete cloud-delivered security platform without the need for network architecture changes. Over time, customers can easily transition to a more secure connection method in Prisma Access that protects all apps, ports and protocols, not just web.
• CloudBlades API-based platform support: CloudBlades is a platform for third-party services integration across the SASE solution. In Prisma Access 2.0, CloudBlades enables qualified third-party security and infrastructure services to be easily integrated, with the first being RBI services from leading vendors to enable remote browser isolation.

Prisma Access 2.0 also adds powerful IoT security capabilities to help organizations protect against IoT threats without the need to deploy additional sensors or appliances; CloudBlades to simplify and streamline the integration of cloud-delivered third-party services starting with RBI services.

“Remote work is now a critical long-term strategy for most organizations globally. As such, secure access to all apps with an optimized user experience has become a business necessity,” said Anand Oswal, senior vice president and general manager, Firewall as a Platform, Palo Alto Networks. “To achieve this, organizations have to rethink their security architecture and move towards a cloud-delivered security model that can connect any user, to any application, from anywhere.”

“While it was quite unexpected, 2020 was the year that remote work became the norm for millions around the world. Even with the optimism surrounding COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, it is clear remote work is here to stay — and the cloud is how they will get there,” said Eric Parizo, principal analyst, Omdia. “The organizations that succeed will be those that not only keep their data safe from cyberattacks, but also ensure the digital experience for their remote workers is smooth and reliable. Omdia believes cloud-delivered security approaches like Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks will become the predominant architectural model to secure and enable the future of work moving forward.”

“Prisma Access has well anticipated the security needs of enterprise workforces as they continue a fundamental shift to remote work. With Prisma Access 2.0, our security experts can offer best-in-class security solutions and services at scale to meet any connectivity need across the enterprise,” said Bill Buckalew, vice president, Go-to-Market at Optiv. “Customers appreciate the standards it sets for reliability, access and performance.”