How to Protect Organizations, Customers and National Security

By David Colberg, Senior Director, Government Affairs, Palo Alto Networks

Cybersecurity is most effective when it’s built into new technologies from the start. Government can play an important role in this effort, both by encouraging best practices within its jurisdiction and by working with industry partners to utilize them for its own infrastructure and data protection. We will discuss how the cybersecurity industry can work with government and industry to build a safer and more secure tomorrow at our annual Federal Ignite conference, which opens Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C. 

Palo Alto Networks created Federal Ignite to offer solutions, best practices and a way forward for governments and industry partners. We advocate starting from sound principles such as Zero Trust, a security approach rooted in the principle to “never trust” and always verify and authenticate all users, devices and applications in a network. We suggest implementing strong, prevention-focused security regulations and architecture as early as possible for new technologies. In this way, we can enjoy the potential that these technologies offer as a society while protecting against the risks that come with them. 

Organizations can take advantage of the scale and speed of modern computing environments to automate and orchestrate cybersecurity capabilities, simplifying how cybersecurity innovation is deployed and consumed. Consistent visibility and automated threat prevention across the entire infrastructure, regardless of where data resides—including networks, endpoints and cloud environments—is critical and achievable.

Federal Ignite ‘19 brings together experts from Palo Alto Networks and beyond to address the issues facing government and industry today as we work to protect our organizations, customers, citizens and national security as technologies advance. Speakers include Amit Singh, president; Rick Howard, chief security officer; Lee Klarich, chief product officer; and Zero Trust expert John Kindervag. We are honored to host U.S. officials including North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Jeanette Manfra, assistant director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Donna Dodson, chief cybersecurity advisor of the National Institute of Standards and Technology; and Stuart McGuigan, CIO of the U.S. State Department. 

They will discuss topics including:

Cloud Security

National and local governments, as well as other organizations, are realizing the significant operational and cost benefits of transitioning data and workloads to the cloud. Moving to the cloud, however, does not make an organization more inherently secure. Policy and procurement guidelines must recognize the shared responsibility model for cloud security, which requires that public cloud providers maximize infrastructure security while organizations using the infrastructure work with security companies to protect data security. 

Zero Trust

Zero Trust has been increasingly adopted by businesses and governments around the globe. The philosophy is effective not only for existing technologies but also for technologies with possibilities that haven’t yet been fully explored. Palo Alto Networks is a technological, architectural and security policy leader in the principles of Zero Trust, and the home of John Kindervag, who created the concept in 2010, while at the IT firm Forrester. 

5G

As telecom and service providers upgrade to 5G, they should enhance cybersecurity at the same time to protect the internet-connected cars, medical devices and other critical technologies that will run on those networks. Governments and industry partners should encourage security measures not only for the 5G infrastructure itself, but for the applications and services that will run across it. A clean 5G network should prevent malware from transporting across protected devices and prevent unauthorized command and control from exploited connected devices. 

Supply Chain Security

With nearly a decade of experience in high-tech manufacturing, Palo Alto Networks understands what it takes to maintain product integrity. We believe responsible companies have a duty to keep a secure supply chain and that governments should promote the adoption of supply chain best practices by incentivizing product integrity. 

We have implemented strong and transparent supply chain best practices. We regularly choose to forgo suppliers and manufacturing locations where regulatory standards would pose a threat to our intellectual property or product integrity. We avoid selling our products where intrusive source code review is required. These are simply the right decisions for product security. 

Federal Ignite ‘19

Palo Alto Networks has put together an event that addresses these issues and more, providing best practices and hands-on training, and highlighting new innovations. Attendees will learn about next-generation cybersecurity priorities and how to execute them in government and industry. Join us Oct. 10-11 at the Palo Alto Networks Federal Ignite conference.