
PAN-OS natively classifies all traffic, inclusive of applications, threats, and content. It’s the same software that runs all Palo Alto firewalls. The controlling element of the PA-1400 Series is PAN-OS. ML is simply a device harnessing data, observations, and interactions in order to correctly generalize to new settings. In other words, it does what you want, without having to be told. So it’s not hard to see why you might want a firewall that can think, spot patterns, and act without being specifically programmed. There’s an old axiom about computers they don’t do what you want them to they do what you tell them to. It is not exactly the same as Artificial Intelligence, but for our purposes, it’s close. In short, ML is the science of getting computers to get smarter over time, on their own, like humans do. “Machine Learning is the science of getting computers to learn and act like humans do, and improve their learning over time in autonomous fashion, by feeding them data and information in the form of observations and real-world interactions.” This isn’t our definition, but it’s a pretty good one.

In order to understand why this is a big deal, we need a decent working definition of ML, so here goes: The Palo Alto PA-1400 series ( PA-1410 and PA-1420) is the first Next-Gen firewall family powered by machine learning. The Palo Alto 1400 series firewalls certainly uphold the Palo Alto reputation. They enjoy an almost mythical reputation among IT wonks, and their track record of innovation is a huge reason for this. Palo Alto is truly among the very top names in cyber-security.
