The Palo Alto Networks PA-220R is a ruggedized, ML-powered Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) designed to provide advanced security in industrial environments with harsh conditions, such as power plants, manufacturing facilities, utility substations, and healthcare networks. Built to operate in extreme conditions, the PA-220R extends advanced network security to unmanaged IoT devices and industrial control systems, ensuring robust protection across all applications and devices.
Key Highlights
- ML-Powered Security: Embeds machine learning at its core to stop file-based attacks and phishing attempts in real-time.
- Ruggedized Design: Certified for harsh environments, with extended operating temperature range and no moving parts.
- Comprehensive Threat Prevention: Delivers advanced threat protection through various cloud-delivered services.
- High Availability: Supports active/active and active/passive configurations.
- IoT Security: Protects unmanaged devices without deploying additional sensors.
- Centralized Management: Integrated with Panorama for simplified management and visibility across multiple firewalls.
Key Features
ML-Powered Next-Generation Firewall
- Real-Time Protection: Uses ML to prevent never-before-seen threats, including phishing attempts and malware.
- Cloud-Delivered Security: Receives zero-delay signatures and updates from cloud-based ML processes to enhance threat prevention.
- IoT Device Detection: Automatically detects IoT devices using behavioral analysis and recommends security policies accordingly.
Comprehensive Application Visibility and Control
- App-ID Technology: Classifies all traffic, including industrial protocols like Modbus and DNP3, across any port, protocol, or encryption.
- Application Control: Uses the application—not the port—as the basis for all security policies, improving the granularity and effectiveness of security decisions.
- Policy Optimization: Migrates legacy rules to App-ID-based rules with built-in tools, enhancing security while reducing administrative overhead.
User-Centric Security
- Dynamic User Groups (DUGs): Enables time-bound security actions based on user behavior, without requiring changes in user directories.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Protects credentials and prevents their reuse in malicious attacks.
- Zero Trust Security: Supports Cloud Identity Engine for consistent identity-based security policies, regardless of user location or device.
Encrypted Traffic Management
- TLS/SSL Inspection: Inspects encrypted traffic, including TLS 1.3, without decryption for improved visibility and security.
- Decryption Controls: Offers granular control over when and how traffic is decrypted, based on factors like source, destination, and user group, ensuring privacy and compliance.
- Decryption Mirroring: Enables a copy of decrypted traffic to be sent to traffic collection tools for forensics and data loss prevention (DLP).
Cloud-Delivered Security Services
- Advanced Threat Prevention: Blocks known exploits, malware, and command and control (C2) attacks, with a prevention rate of 96% for web-based Cobalt Strike C2 attacks.
- WildFire Malware Prevention: Detects and prevents unknown malware 180x faster than traditional engines using the industry’s largest threat intelligence.
- Advanced URL Filtering: Prevents access to malicious websites in real-time, 24 hours ahead of other vendors.
- DNS Security: Provides 40% more DNS-attack coverage without requiring infrastructure changes.
- SaaS Security and IoT Security: Automatically discovers and secures all SaaS apps and IoT devices, ensuring consistent security across diverse environments.
Specifications
Performance and Capacities
- Firewall Throughput: 545 Mbps (HTTP); 535 Mbps (AppMix).
- Threat Prevention Throughput: 265 Mbps (HTTP); 320 Mbps (AppMix).
- IPsec VPN Throughput: 550 Mbps.
- Max Sessions: 64,000.
- New Sessions per Second: 4,200.
Ruggedized Features
- Environmental Certifications: IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 for vibration, temperature, and electromagnetic interference immunity.
- Power Supply: Dual DC power support (12–48V), ensuring consistent operation even in power fluctuations.
- Fanless Design: No moving parts for improved reliability in harsh environments.
- Flexible Mounting: Supports DIN rail, rack, and wall mounting for easy deployment in various industrial settings.
High Availability and Resilience
- Redundancy Options: Supports both active/active and active/passive configurations to ensure continuous protection even during failover events.
- Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP): Simplifies deployment across multiple remote sites without manual configuration.
- USB-Based Bootstrapping: Streamlines deployment for remote or difficult-to-reach environments.
Centralized Management
- Panorama Integration: Simplifies administration across distributed networks, with centralized policy management and configuration using Panorama network security management.
- Comprehensive Insights: Offers deep visibility into network traffic, threats, and application usage via the Application Command Center (ACC).
Advanced Packet Processing
- Single-Pass Architecture: Optimizes processing by performing networking, policy lookup, application decoding, and threat analysis in a single pass. This reduces latency and ensures consistent performance.
- Stream-Based Signature Matching: Scans traffic for all threats and content in one pass, significantly reducing processing overhead.
AIOps for NGFW
- Proactive Recommendations: Delivers customized best practice recommendations to strengthen security posture.
- Predictive Maintenance: Predicts and resolves firewall health, performance, and capacity issues using machine learning and advanced telemetry data.
SD-WAN Functionality
- Native SD-WAN Support: Safely implements SD-WAN by enabling it directly on the existing firewall, improving user experience by reducing latency and packet loss.
Use Cases
- Industrial and Defense Networks: Ideal for securing networks in harsh conditions such as power utilities, manufacturing plants, oil and gas facilities, and healthcare systems.
- IoT and Unmanaged Devices: Extends security to IoT and other unmanaged devices without additional hardware, making it well-suited for industrial control systems and smart devices.
Resources for Palo Alto Networks Enterprise Firewall PA-220R
Conclusion
The PA-220R offers a powerful and resilient solution for industrial and harsh environments, combining machine learning-powered security with ruggedized design. With capabilities for advanced threat prevention, encrypted traffic management, and centralized management through Panorama, the PA-220R delivers enterprise-grade security to critical infrastructure. Its high availability, flexible deployment options, and seamless integration with cloud-delivered security services make it an ideal choice for organizations requiring robust, industrial-grade network security.