Why Automation Is Essential For Security
Given the number and variety of cyberthreats, automation is essential for protecting networks. While network traffic and user behavior analysis are the main components of network protection, Ely says the most important benefit that automation provides is efficiency. This is the basis of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR extended detection and response platform, which runs on integrated endpoints, networks and cloud data to reduce the noise. This frees up security staff to focus on actual threats.
“On their best day, budgets are not growing. On their worst day, budgets are at risk of shrinking,” Ely says. “So how do you face increasing adversaries without the ability to hire more people and purchase more tools? The only way you can do that is through automation.”
He adds, “User behavior analytics, network traffic analysis — all of this feeds into Cortex, which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to contextualize and normalize all of this traffic,” allowing IT teams to easily distinguish patterns.
MORE ON EDTECH: Learn how artificial intelligence can solve cybersecurity staffing shortages.
For example, the Palo Alto Networks security operations center receives over 100 billion events per quarter. About 99 percent of the events are considered low hanging fruit, Ely says — things like network time and server redirects. Less than 1 percent of these are identified as actual threats.
Using automation, the SOC team needs to work only a few hundred events per quarter. With Cortex XSOAR (formally Demisto), the team can focus on prevention instead of reacting to every threat.
“Out of more than 100 billion events, we’re seeing 500 manual interventions per quarter for our SOCs,” Ely says. “That’s the power of automation.”
Recognizing that remote learning will remain a large part of education, Ely notes that Palo Alto Networks will evolve its offerings to meet the changing demands of the higher ed sector. “We’ve got to listen to this community,” he says. “We’ve got to build products that meet their needs.”
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