Securing the AI Revolution: Palo Alto Networks' Blueprint for Cyber Resilience in the Autonomous Age

Unlock the future of cybersecurity with Anand from Palo Alto Networks, our esteemed guest this week at the RSAC. Prepare to arm yourself with the knowledge to secure AI from the ground up, as we explore the necessity of safeguarding AI-powered applications and employee interactions. Anand delves into the push for simplicity in cybersecurity, illuminating the path towards an autonomous landscape peppered with SOC and automation advancements. Moreover, the discourse ventures into the realm of hybrid workforce security, highlighting the vital role of secure enterprise browsers in defending both managed and unmanaged devices against insidious browser-based threats.

As we engage with Anand's rich experience and the dynamic culture at Palo Alto Networks, you'll gain invaluable insights into their collaborative and innovation-driven approach to staying a step ahead of cyber threats. For those eyeing a career in this vibrant field, Anand imparts sage advice centered around the power of perpetual learning. Plus, we tackle the practicalities of weaving AI into security strategies, with pragmatic steps for a secure AI application lifecycle. So, tune in to this episode for a strategic dialogue that emphasizes the essence of proactivity and ingenuity in the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

And I'm here with Anand from Palo Alto Networks at RSAC. Anand, so much happening this week. What are the top two or three strategic themes from your point of view here at RSAC?

Speaker 2: 0:14

Look, the biggest theme that I'm seeing at RSAC is, of course, every organization is seeing, as they're looking at AI how do they secure their AI by design, both for employees accessing AI and the applications they're building, which are AI powered. The second big thing I'm hearing is around how do you simplify cybersecurity and move to an autonomous environment, and that's where all the work on the SOC and the automation comes into play. And, last but not least, as I talked to many customers, around hybrid workforce and network security. A lot of discussion around secure enterprise browser, because majority of the threats that we are seeing are happening from browser-based attacks, and how do you ensure that you add another layer of protection on managed devices. And also, how do you embrace security for unmanaged devices to the browser. Those are the top three themes I'm seeing, evan.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Such an interesting insight. Talk about your team. You've been in this industry for 30 or so years. Sorry to age you here, but you have built an impressive team, impressive culture. Give us a peek behind the curtain into what's happening at Palo Alto Networks these days.

Speaker 2: 1:19

Look at Palo Alto Networks first. This is the most collaborative company I've ever worked in. Cyber security is a team sport, so what drives this team is really innovation. The forefront of most technology companies should be around what we do for innovation, and in this case we are mission driven. We want to stay ahead of the attackers. We want to make sure that our employees are accessing things safely For companies that we're giving solutions for. They're having the right cybersecurity solutions so they can focus on what they do best run their business and let us drive all the outcomes for security for them.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Wow, that's such an important note. And for aspiring future employees of Palo Alto Networks or up-and-coming younger folks interested in this industry, what's your advice to them? Guidance tips.

Speaker 2: 2:11

You know, look, I give the same guidance to my daughter, who's in college right now. Like you know, this is the age to learn, Like they're all fortunate to be in this time in this industry, with all this amazing innovation happening and there's so much opportunity, Focus on learning and everything else will take care of itself.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Such a simple but important piece of advice, and what keeps you up at night, if I can ask? I mean, there's so many challenges and threats. It's exciting as an industry, but the real world it's pretty scary. How do you sleep well at night? Or?

Speaker 2: 2:41

not, no, I sleep well at night. I have an amazing, amazing team. Okay, and this is something that we are very proud of we have some of the best security professionals in our team, the best researchers, the best developers, the best people that are building the most amazing products to simplify cybersecurity, to help our customers get the best outcomes from a security perspective, so they can focus on their business and we can make sure that they're secure.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Well said For customers, partners looking to take this initial journey towards leveraging AI and security. What are the first two or three baby steps they need to consider? Plan on this journey? It's very complex. There's a lot of FUD, there's a lot of confusion and hype, but what are the practical steps to start this process?

Speaker 2: 3:29

I agree with you. There's a lot of confusion and hype. That's why I say always simplify what you're offering. For AI. We really have two broad-based solutions that you can have. Your employees are accessing Gen AI applications and you want to have full visibility, control, protection from data and threat as they access these applications and get more productive. And as businesses build AI powered applications to transform the operations, to give new experiences to your customers. You want to ensure the entire lifecycle is secured, from build to design to run. That's really what you want to do, so secure AI by design, holistically, end-to-end.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Such an important insight. Maybe talk about some of the trends that you're looking to stay ahead of. You talk about innovation is staying ahead of the curve. What are the two or three trends that you are investing in so that you're ahead of the next wave of threats and keeping your customers again one or two steps ahead of those as well?

Speaker 2: 4:29

Yeah, Look, I think we announced today Precision AI Security Services. That's another step to stay ahead of the competition. The old ways of doing cybersecurity based on databases and signatures are not sufficient. Attackers are getting more and more sophisticated. You want to stop attacks that you have never seen before. The days of me stopping an attack that affected you I built a signature, I patched it and now I'm safe from it are gone. Attackers are sophisticated. You want to stop these day zero attacks before anybody has seen them, and that's possible through power of AI and machine learning and what we call precision AI.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Really interesting. Can't wait to learn more. We talk about automation in different industries. It's particularly important in the security industry, where we can't hire enough professionals, we can't train enough. What do you think the impact of AI and automation will be on the workforce and scaling up security to meet the challenges we're all facing?

Speaker 2: 5:29

Look, there's a huge shortage of cybersecurity skill sets in the industry. Now, if you think about all the alerts and things that you get from a security perspective, setting policies they cannot be done manually. 99% of all issues that happen in cybersecurity are happening because of manual configurations. So you want to move away from and it's not intentional, it just happens. It's hard right. We want to make sure that we simplify and automate these. So give you the right guided recommendations, make sure that you can adhere to the best practices, tell you things before they happen, guide you to the mediated workflow and that's really what you get with new solutions from Palo Alto Networks.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Can't wait to see that in action. Every day you pick up the paper, there's another ransomware incident, another breach. It really is kind of terrifying just opening the newspaper, so to speak, every morning. How do you rationalize that and maybe give us a snapshot of what's happening on the positive side, all the threats that you're defending against, all the success stories that you don't hear about in the media, what's happening there and what's the future? Are we going to just become accustomed to these stories daily or are we going to sort of win the battle over times, weeks, months, years Look?

Speaker 2: 6:48

I'm extremely optimistic. This is something that I think we are ahead of it, and I'll tell you some examples. We are stopping around 12 billion with a B threats every single day Wow Right. A small number of them compared to 12 billion 19 to 20 million threats are attacks that nobody has ever seen before Wow Right. This is because of the power of this precision AI services that we have that are stopping these threats before they happen. Every single service that we have is now augmented with the power of AI and machine learning and precision AI services. We have over 4,000 plus machine learning models in network security that are stopping the advanced threats phishing attacks, ransomware attacks, attacks on that you can stop with sandboxing, dns attacks so we are staying ahead of the competition. It's also about combining these things together by having the network effect of data. So when you enable multiple of these services, they share the intelligence and they're able to stop the kill chain.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Wow. That's a positive note here which I'm really excited about. Not too much good news out there. Talk about where you invest. I mean, palo Alto Networks is known for its massive R&D investments, its acquisition of really innovative companies. How do you see your innovation investments continuing and paying off?

Speaker 2: 8:10

Yeah, look, I think we spend a lot of work. We have some amazing engineers in R&D globally and we're always looking at what trends are happening in the industry, and it's a combination of what we build and what we buy right, and that's something I will continue to do.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Well, so much to catch up on here, so many announcements. Can't wait to see much more of the news. We're only here, speaking live in person on Tuesday. So congratulations on all the success and I can't wait to catch up over the upcoming weeks and months. Thank you, evan. Thanks for talking to you.