International. Palo Alto has just introduced Cortex Cloud, the next version of Prisma Cloud, which natively brings together new versions of its cloud detection and response (CDR) capabilities and cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP).
The new solution equips security teams with significant innovations driven by AI and automation that go beyond traditional "peacetime" approaches to cloud security and stop attacks in real time.
Unit 42 reports reveal that 80% of security exposures were found on cloud attack surfaces, with a 66% increase in threats targeting cloud environments. As cloud adoption and AI use grows, Cortex Cloud unifies data, automates workflows, and applies AI-driven insights to reduce risk, prevent threats, and stop attacks in real time.
Cortex Cloud is designed to ingest and analyze data from third-party tools to provide centralized visibility, AI-powered insights, and end-to-end solutions across the entire cloud security ecosystem.
Lee Klarich, Chief Product Officer at Palo Alto Networks comments, “As more critical enterprise applications move to the cloud, cloud security must expand to
include industry-leading runtime protection. And to make it as easy as possible for our customers to adopt end-to-end cloud security, we’re including CNAPP at no additional cost for all Cortex Cloud Runtime Security customers. With Cortex Cloud, we’re delivering the next generation of cloud security, enabling organizations to quickly prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to evolving threats across their entire enterprise.”
Cortex Cloud delivers on Palo Alto Networks’ platformization strategy by re-architecting its cloud security solution on the AI-powered Cortex SecOps platform to deliver a powerful, unified user experience with people-based dashboards and workflows. Cortex Cloud helps customers achieve superior protection at a significantly lower total cost of ownership and provides additional value and new features including:
- Application Security: Build secure applications and prevent issues in development before they become production problems that attackers can target. Cortex Cloud identifies and prioritizes issues throughout the development process with end-to-end context across code, runtime, cloud, and newly introduced third-party scanners.
- Cloud Posture: Improve risk management across multiple clouds with new AI-powered prioritization, guided remediation to resolve multiple risks with a single action, and automated remediation. Additionally, Cortex Cloud offers a unique user experience with tight integration across all of Prisma Cloud’s cloud posture capabilities.
- Cloud Runtime: Stop attacks in real time. Cortex Cloud natively integrates the Cortex XDR unified agent, enriched with additional cloud data sources, to prevent threats with advanced analytics, as demonstrated by industry-leading results in the most recent MITRE ATT&CK tests. The new cloud runtime security offering includes world-leading CNAPP capabilities at no additional cost, maximizing end-to-end cloud security adoption on a single platform.
- SOC: The preferred SOC platform for the enterprise and cloud, expanding beyond what any SIEM can deliver. Cortex Cloud natively integrates cloud data, context, and workflows within Cortex XSIAM to significantly reduce mean time to respond (MTTR) to modern threats with a single, unified SecOps solution.
Melinda Marks, director of cybersecurity practice, Enterprise Strategy Group, states, "Security teams must mitigate risk to reduce the chance of cybersecurity incidents, and if an incident occurs, they must respond as quickly as possible. Our research shows that security teams struggle with remediation efficiency because application security, cloud security, and security operations tools and processes have historically been siloed. With the introduction of Cortex Cloud, Palo Alto Networks is delivering a unified code-to-cloud-to-SOC platform that gives security teams the ability to seamlessly remediate and mitigate the risk of cybersecurity incidents."
Customer delivery
Current Prisma Cloud customers will experience a seamless upgrade to Cortex Cloud. Existing Cortex XSIAM customers who add Cortex Cloud gain the ability to seamlessly adopt CNAPP capabilities that are native by design to the AI-powered enterprise-to-cloud SecOps platform. Cortex Cloud will be available to customers later in Q3 FY25.
Introducing launch partners
Eager to deploy the differentiated Cortex Cloud to customers are Palo Alto Networks’ esteemed integration partners: CyberCX, Deloitte, IBM, and Orange Cyberdefense. Together with each partner, Palo Alto Networks will drive end-to-end SecOps transformation across enterprise and cloud environments, enabling organizations to achieve superior risk reduction, rapid threat prevention, and optimized operational efficiency.
