Palo Alto Networks delivers private cloud deployment option

The company said the WF-500 appliance is designed to meet the needs of customers with restrictions that preclude them from accessing a public cloud option.

The firm said the Palo Alto Networks WF-500 appliance delivers the comprehensive sandbox detection and analysis capabilities of the Palo Alto Networks public cloud based WildFire subscription offering on a customer-owned platform.

When deployed with an inline Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall, the WF-500 also offers full prevention capabilities.

Now used by more than 1,700 customers globally, the WildFire service aggregates suspicious files flagged by Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls deployed at customer sites around the world.

The files are uploaded for analysis by Palo Alto Networks systems and experts.  If a file is determined to be malware or an APT, a signature is generated and automatically sent to subscribing Palo Alto Networks WildFire customers’ next-generation firewalls to provide protection from:

- The 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 WF-500 appliance offers these same advantages on a secure device inside the customer’s network. Customers are then free to detect, analyze, and eradicate suspected threats in a private cloud under their control.  If they choose to, they are also free to share confirmed findings with or receive updated malware signatures from the WildFire cloud service.