Palo Alto Network’s WildFire is a malware prevention service. It specializes in addressing zero-day threats through dynamic and static analysis, machine learning, and advanced sandbox testing environments.
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Symantec Content & Malware Analysis
Score 8.3 out of 10
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Symantec Content & Malware Analysis is an application which provides advanced threat detection and threat hunting through advanced machine learning, based on intelligence gathered from ProxySG, threat intelligence services, and other sources.
Depending on the environment being implemented in I'd recommend it for compliance purposes as well as managing it from a Network Engineer perspective. From my experience, firmware updates, patching and hardware integration have generally been smooth. Truth be told, cloud based firewall and networking compliance are becoming more and more mainstream and WildFire has a solid foundation.
If you have Symantec based environment including Symantec proxy and endpoints, Content and Malware Analysis is the obvious choice. You can't run the CAS-MAS as a standalone deployment, you need proxies or ICAP supported devices capable to send the files/URLS. It's not a network security device where you can flow/direct the traffic to C/MAS. It does not have UBA, NBA or NTR features, it is just working for analyzing files as expected.
Quick definition downloads and updates. Version 7.1 can do one every 5 minutes. Zero day protection within 5 minutes is a huge plus.
Quick manual or automatic examination of files. Palo Alto's wildfire site supports API uploads or manual uploads that provide more detailed information than a Virustotal, for example.
It works very well and takes care of protecting us from threats new and well-known. It's been a game changer in terms of threat detection & prevention.
It is a great product that has definitely improved our security posture, however it does require quite a bit of training and time spent customizing for the environment. We had several difficulties in deployment but Palo Alto support was able to help us work through the problems that we were not able to figure out on our own.
PAN support is very good. You can get the reasonable and timely support on any conditions. When the product is already integrated with the PAN firewalls, you can choose the severity levels based on the effect. The customer service/TAC is very helpful, they even have additional recommendations of advises for product usability. Local partners are also assisting the cases and give their expertise.
We tested Fortinet's products before settling on Palo Alto Networks WildFire. Most of our sites were already deployed with Palo Alto Firewalls, which made the decision easy, however we also based that on Palo Alto's superior ratings by other security firms. Fortinet also has a solid product portfolio but Palo Alto Networks WildFire turned out to be the best choice for our organization.
We have been using many solutions even tested nearly all available 0day sandbox solutions in the market. We choose Symantec CMA as we have already Symantec endpoint protection/EDR on the client, Symantec proxy for the web access, SCMA fits our environment. We have a big bargain when we puchase lots of equipment from the Symantec. Detection and prevention is very good at SCMA but some constant issues; like the product is not designed for heterogeneous environments, we can not integrate the SCMA with WAFs, it's lacking in api and request/reply calls. There's no file scanning, discover the option. SIEM integration is not smooth. I can not run some of the SOAR playbooks through the SCMA.
As the SSL is inspected and analyzed at Bluecoat proxy servers, hidden threats, malicous files are passed to SCMA to be analyzed.
Getting full visibility at file trajectory level
As it's a full proxy and ICAP integration, we are sure that the files are to analyzed and scanned for malicious activity. This is a big plus compared to NGFW analyze concept, as the NGFWs have special failsafe mechanisms allowing bypass of file analysis. SCMA fully catches the hidden threats.
Flawless integration with Bluecoat systems is a big plus, customers are getting the same type of messages within their browsers.
A negative impact is the standardization when I deploy SCAM to one of our locations. Then the auditors demand the same coverage within other areas and it comes with the cost. Especially maintaining these devices on premise environment has a significant cost.
