Cloud

Review: Cortex Cloud Keeps Government Apps Safe, From Development to Deployment

This cloud-native application protection platform combines multiple security features in one place.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

Migrating critical applications and enterprise workloads to the cloud can yield numerous cost and efficiency benefits for government. However, cloud environments can also be a lot more fluid, with new services spinning up instantly in response to needs, and users able to access assets from anywhere. When combined with the rapid pace of software development and deployment, blind spots can inadvertently form, especially if lone cybersecurity platforms can’t examine the entire enterprise or coordinate with other defenses.

That has led to a rise in cloud-native application protection platforms, which combine the compliance and security functions of multiple programs. CNAPPs are critical these days. Though vendors such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon have created highly secure clouds for government use, the shared responsibility model still leaves agencies on the hook for their own applications’ security. The provider protects the infrastructure while the agency protects its software and apps.

Total protection from the development process to the point where applications are running within cloud environments is what the new Cortex Cloud platform from Palo Alto Networks is designed to provide. Cortex combines the vulnerability hunting and security by design support found in the previous Prisma Cloud for Federal product with new cloud detection and response security capabilities to protect apps at all times. And once apps are in the production environment, alerts and anomalies are tracked using artificial intelligence to reduce fatigue for security staff.

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Secure by Design Stops Vulnerable Code in Pipelines

The Cortex Cloud platform is designed to protect government applications running in government clouds. It takes a holistic approach to this, starting with the development of new applications. Using Cortex Cloud, developers can have the platform check for vulnerabilities while new apps are being coded. To accomplish this, it checks a variety of factors, including the technologies used, the code repositories drawn from, who contributes to app development, connected pipelines and many other factors. This fully supports the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Secure by Design initiative and keeps vulnerable code from moving too far down federal development pipelines.

But Cortex Cloud now works well beyond code development. By combining cloud security posture management, data security, cloud discovery, exposure management and infrastructure entitlement management, it provides complete visibility into everything operating in a government cloud. This includes how everything is connected, what applications are talking to each other, permissions, runtime events and even how data is flowing.

Pinpointing Threats in the Environment With AI

The platform then uses AI and machine learning to determine whether there are any problems in the environment and if those problems are being actively exploited. In my testing, Cortex Cloud was very good at separating vulnerabilities and misconfigurations from actual threats. And if an actual threat is detected, it can lock things down automatically using agents, which can be deployed into critical applications if the platform has permission to do so.

Within the detection and response capabilities, there are three main components: web application and API security, cloud detection and response, and cloud workload protection. Those key features are often provided to agencies by individual programs. But having them all work together and communicate within Cortex Cloud is a force multiplier, providing not only a complete network view but also a suite of unified capabilities ready to deal with any situation.

SPECIFICATIONS

PRODUCT TYPE: Cloud-native application protection platform
KEY SERVICES: Enterprisewide visibility, app runtime protection, predictive threat analysis, application security, API protection
SUPPORTED GOVERNMENT CLOUDS: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and others
DISTRIBUTION: As a service
SOFTWARE TYPE: Annual subscription or perpetual license

Cortex Cloud Achieves Many Security Certifications

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program was designed as a robust set of security protocols and standards that cloud products and services could be measured against. Agencies know that if a product is FedRAMP-certified, they can bring it into their networks without worrying about vulnerabilities or security flaws.

Cortex Cloud is certified to medium level with FedRAMP, and it is in the process of becoming certified to high. That is extremely impressive already, and something that most cloud products and services fail to achieve.

But Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex Cloud goes beyond that. As a security platform, it makes sense that users would expect it to have quite a few certifications, but Cortex Cloud has racked up nearly all of the critical accreditations within government, as well as many sector-specific standards.

It supports the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s SP 800-53, SP 800-171 and Cybersecurity Framework for government applications. In addition to FedRAMP Moderate, Cortex Cloud also complies with SOC 2 Type 2 and International Organization for Standardization standards 27001, 27017, 27018 and 27701.

Outside of (or perhaps peripheral to) government, Cortex Cloud also complies with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, HIPAA, the General Data Protection Regulation, the California Consumer Privacy Act, the Computer Security Alliance’s Cloud Controls Matrix, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification and many other custom compliance frameworks. It’s a safe bet that Cortex Cloud has been rigorously tested to work in just about any environment, whether in government or the private sector.