Palo Alto Networks today announced that it has joined the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) as an inaugural member. As a inaugural member Palo Alto Networks and will be provided with vulnerability information in advance of Microsoft’s monthly security update release to offer protections to customers efficiently and effectively.
The latest edition of Palo Alto Networks Application Usage and Risk Report – which analyzed the traffic of nearly one million users across 60 enterprises – confirmed the extent to which application threat activity has evaded enterprise defenses and exploited vulnerabilities in everything from web browsers to desktop applications. Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls with patent-pending App-ID™ application classification technology currently track and secure more than 700 traditional and emerging applications, and growing.
"Keeping up with patches – from validating and testing, to deployment – is a race against time, and a race that is being won by hackers," said Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing for Palo Alto Networks. "Even more challenging is that to a traditional security infrastructure, application-level exploits often look like normal application traffic. Our next-generation firewalls, combined timely knowledge and research provided by Microsoft, can provide the most targeted and comprehensive protection against all vulnerabilities – infrastructure and application-level."
"Our partners share our passion for industry collaboration to protect a world full of Internet users," said Mark Miller, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing product management. "No one company can accomplish this by itself. That is why we are partnering with Palo Alto Networks to advance and improve security."
The Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) is a new program that will provide vulnerability information to security software providers in advance of Microsoft Corp.’s monthly security update release. By receiving vulnerability information earlier, security software providers can give customers potential improvements to their security protection features, such as third-party intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems or security software signatures.
About Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks™ enables visibility and policy control of applications running on enterprise networks. Based on innovative App-ID™ application classification technology, the Palo Alto Networks PA-4000 Series next-generation firewall accurately identifies applications – regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic or even SSL encryption – at 10Gbps with no performance degradation. Enterprises can now set and enforce application usage policies to meet compliance requirements, improve threat mitigation and lower operational costs. The Palo Alto Networks team includes security and networking industry veterans from Check Point, NetScreen, McAfee, Cisco, Juniper and Blue Coat. It is backed by investors Globespan Capital Partners, Greylock Partners and Sequoia Capital. For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.
###
Palo Alto Networks, the Palo Alto Networks Logo, App-ID, FlashMatch and PAN-OS are trademarks of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. in the United States. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
