” Palo alto networks is well known by its next generationfirewalls . It is a fast growing company . We had an opportunity to interview saeed agha, middle east general manager of palo alto. “

Can you introduce yourself to security kaizen Magazine Readers?

Saeed agha, general manager – middle east at palo alto networks .

Can you give us an overview about Palo Alto Networks, when did it start? and where? Also what kind of products you provide?

We protect the networks of more than 16,000 customers in over 120 countries in organizations across multiple industries, including manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, education, retail, government, high tech, and many more.
Here in the middle east, we have offices dubai, riyadh & doha and secure government institutions and private
companies.
• Over 1375 employees globally.
• Founded in 2005.
• Shipped its first product in 2007.
• Priced its initial public offering (ipo) on july 19, 2012.
Our innovative security platform is based on our nextgeneration firewall which natively classifies all traffic,
inclusive of applications, threats and content, then ties that traffic to the user, regardless of location or device
type. The application, content, and user – the core elements that run your business – are then used as
the basis of your security policies. This unique ability empowers you to safely enable applications, make informed decisions on network access, and strengthen your network security.

Regardless of where your applications, users, and content may be, they almost always run across the network – which is the logical place to secure them. Deploy our innovative network security products to secure users (e.G., Internet gateways, branch offices, mobile users) as well as services (e.G., Virtualized datacenters, virtualized desktop infrastructures, websites). All of your offices, datacenters, and remote users can be protected by the same safe application enablement policies, which simplifies security. Our platform enables you to see and understand everything that happens on your network, so you can focus on real problems

Having 15 years in the region in the it industry, in your opinion, What differentiate Palo alto networks from other security vendors especially who provide similar products like fortinet, sonic wall and others ?

Palo alto networks has grown at significant Rates, relative to the market and relative to all Of our competitors, and we expect to continue To do so because we have established ourselves As the clear leader in next‐generation security at a time when enterprises and organizations in the middle east face increasingly more frequent and sophisticated cyber attacks.
Palo alto networks is leading a new era in cybersecurity by protecting thousands of enterprise, government, and service provider networks in the region from cyber threats. Unlike fragmented legacy products, our security platform safely enables business operations and delivers protection based on what matters most in today’s dynamic computing environments:
applications, users, and content.
The palo alto networks security platform is uniquely positioned at the right place in the network, using its next‐generation firewall as the main protection point for network security, and complemented with known and unknown threat detection mechanisms to provide
a highly integrated and automated level of visibility and intelligence for advanced cyber threat detection
and prevention.
The mainstream adoption of our platform as the firewall of choice, as well as our unique ability to provide the most integrated and automated cyber threat detection and prevention capabilities in the market, is fueling
our growth.
Further, wildfire, our powerful subscription service for unique detection and prevention capabilities, is an example of the continued disruptive innovation that is widening the gap between our platform and competitive offerings and continues to act as a driver
and differentiator for business, attracting both new and existing customers.

Which products do the middle east customers require most?

We are seeing demand across our over all products spectrum in the middle east. This demand is mainly fuelled by it initiatives such as byod, cloud, virtualization and by a greater awareness for securing corporate assets, corporate image, compliance & governance. We are uniquely positioned to address those demands covering cyber security solutions for devices, users, applications, content & targeted attacks, apt. Our products provide security to end points such as laptops, smart phones and tablets from one side of the spectrum to dc security such as virtual firewalls & dc firewalls.

How do you see the security market in middle east and the emerging markets? Is it mature enough or we still need time to understand the risks and the threats?

There is a high and mature understanding of the risks in most of the middle east countries. We are witnessing many country wide initiatives and government driven initiatives that address those risks and establish risk standards around governance, risk & compliance. This only confirms the maturity of the risk understanding in our region.

Threats, on the other hand, are an ever evolving and changing challenge. The foundation is there to be always up to date with the latest threats and we are playing our part in providing continuous thought leadership on this dynamic challenge. We were among the first to publish information on the recent heartbleed security concerns and most recently have been keeping a close watch on new trends mobile malware distribution – something that the middle east is particularly vulnerable to.

Many customers can’t feel the importance of security in their enterprises. Do you contribute in developing security awareness to community or similar activities? Can you please give us an overview about ignite conference? And why you don’t do a similar version of it in the other part of the world in middle east?

Palo alto networks education provides leading-edge training and certification. Our training gives you the next-generation firewall knowledge you need to secure your network and safely enable applications. Our classes feature lecture and hands-on labs. They are available through classroom instruction, virtual live-online or onsite at your location.

Education services are an important part of the palo alto networks solution assurance services framework for deploying and maintaining the next-generation firewall.

Solution assurance services is a program to help our customers get maximum protection and value out of their investment—from the very beginning of their project. By providing the right combination of consulting, education, and support services, along with tools and best practices expertise, solution assurance services help organizations optimize every phase of firewall implementation, from pre-installation all the way into production.

We’re also very active in the local community throughout the region as far as providing education with our own end user and partner conferences and through other wider security events such as the recent idc it security roadshow in riyadh, abu dhabi, dubai & doha and oil & gas cyber security conference in abu dhabi.

We are partnering and sponsoring many other securityfocused conferences as well and we will be present in gisec & gitex this year.

Which sector is focusing more on security (financial, oil & gas, government or others)?

We’re growing quickly in the region and globally. Security threats that we protect against are not really industry specific. The value of data is becoming increasingly understood and safeguarded in the Middle East, so to answer you question, yes, yes and yes. We work a lot within the financial, oil & gas, and government sectors.
We are also working with a lot of clients in education, healthcare, high tech, manufacturing, media & entertainment, professional services, retail, service provider / telecommunications and transportation industries.

As a vendor, what do you think is the biggest challenge in the information security market? (Lack of awareness of customers, products can’t fulfill all customers needs due to high progress in malware and threats or other reason?)

We see three main challenges in the information security market here in the middle east…

Problem one :

The organization is more distributed than ever before – and in the middle east this is probably more prevalent than the rest of the world. In addition to traditional, centralized corporate headquarters, the enterprise probably includes smaller branch offices, employees working remotely from home, or roaming users. Users may move from one location to another within the span of a business day. While this flexibility enables new gains in productivity, it also leads to dangerous inconsistencies and compromises in terms of
your information security.

Solution :

Palo alto networks delivers a consistent approach to network security based on applications, users, and content that always protects your end-users with the full power of our next-generation firewalls, regardless of their physical location. Furthermore, management and reporting for all of your locations can be centralized, freeing your it team from.

Problem two :

Datacenter managers are under pressure to protect infrastructure and applications from increasingly sophisticated and targeted threats. Meanwhile, datacenters are embracing technologies like virtualization and cloud computing that require security architectures to be more:
• Dynamic
• Automated
• Services-oriented
The datacenter needs a high-performance, flexible network security solution that not only safely enables applications and protects against modern threats, but can support the dynamic nature of a virtualized environment.

Solution :

Palo alto networks next-generation firewalls eliminate the unacceptable compromises datacenter managers previously faced with datacenter network security. We enable customers to deploy a simplified, high performance,  flexible network security infrastructure that safely enables the complex and growing number of applications in the datacenter. We also address key virtualization and cloud requirements, including:

• Intra-host inspection of virtual machine traffic (‘East-west’ traffic).

• Tracking security policies to virtual machine creation and movement.

• Integration with cloud orchestration software to automate policy changes. Customers can deploy the same centralized management platform for virtualized and physical firewalls, which optimizes visibility, reduces operational complexity, and decreases policy configuration gaps. With consistent nextgeneration security features, available in physical or virtual form factors, and an optimized low latency architecture, our firewalls deliver better security for any datacenter design – without compromising performance.

Customers can deploy the same centralized management platform for virtualized and physical firewalls, which optimizes visibility, reduces operational complexity, and decreases policy configuration gaps. With consistent nextgeneration security features, available in physical or virtual form factors, and an optimized low-latency architecture, our firewalls deliver better security for any datacenter design – without compromising performance.

 Problem three :

The network is full of applications you cannot identify nor control with your port-based firewall. Filesharing, social networking, personal email, and streaming media are just a few of applications that can evade your firewall by hopping ports, using ssl, or non-standard ports. Employees are using these applications – legitimately in many cases – to do their jobs. Blocking the applications outright may hurt your bottom-line, but blindly allowing them invites business and security risks. Heartbleed is just the latest of such security examples that needs to be address.

Solution :

Using a palo alto networks next-generation firewall, customers can strike the right balance between blocking all personal-use applications and allowing all of them. Secure application enablement begins with knowing exactly which applications are being used and by whom. This information allows you to create effective firewall control policies that extend well beyond the traditional ‘allow or deny’ approach. The final component of our solution is giving you the ability to securely enable applications without degrading your firewall’s performance.