The company’s security products will protect Telus’s 5G core, internet perimeter and IoT deployments
Palo Alto Networks announced Wednesday that Canadian telco Telus has selected the company to secure its 5G network. Telus will use Palo Alto’s hardware and software firewalls to protect network interfaces across its 5G standalone core and internet perimeter, according to Palo Alto, which will also provide Internet of Things (IoT)-based security. Palo Alto Networks said that Telus joins other service providers using the company’s network security offerings, including Dish.
“Palo Alto Networks will leverage its Zero Trust approach, a security framework that is rigorously applied through to the full ecosystem of controls — network, endpoint, cloud, application, IoT, identity and more — and that many organizations rely on for protection that goes beyond the traditional network edge,” said Palo Alto Networks.
It’s the continuation of a decade-long partnership with Palo Alto, said Ibrahim Gedeon, Telus CTO.
“The 5G market is rapidly evolving, propelling innovations through data insight and AI, and it is critical that we implement robust solutions that allow for flexible growth, without compromising security,” said Gedeon.
As Palo Alto continues to score wins with telcos like Telus and Dish, the company’s efforts with hyperscalers also continues apace. Earlier this month, Palo Alto Networks announced that its VM-series Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) software is available through Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace.
The solution helps enterprises with 4G and 5G Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) network deployments to secure them faster using a validated and tested solution. The VM-Series are virtual firewalls — software that provides the same capabilities as Palo Alto’s physical firewall hardware.
Palo Alto was also instrumental in Google’s 2021 deployment of Google Cloud Intrusion Detection System (IDS). The cloud-native managed network security solution aims to simplify network security, according to Google.
“Cloud IDS delivers cloud-native, managed, network-based threat detection. It features simple setup and deployment, and gives customers visibility into traffic entering their cloud environment (north-south traffic) and into traffic between workloads (east-west traffic). Cloud IDS empowers security teams to focus their resources on high-priority issues instead of designing and operating complex network threat detection solutions,” said Google.
Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora discussed shifting enterprise networking and security dynamics during the recent Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference.
“I think the big shift that is happening in security is the traditional channel partners were hardware resellers,” he said. “The new channel is more and more telcos and service providers, system integrators…You’re going to save money, get rid of MPLS (Multi-protocol Label Switching), deploy SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), consolidate seven vendors, put Palo Alto in. That’s not something every customer can do for themselves. That requires them to get an adviser…That adviser now is systems integrators and service providers which is not the traditional channel…So my job has been get closer to the system integrators and service providers and embed our capabilities in them.”
