What is our primary use case?
Previously, we were primarily using Amazon Web Services in a product division. We initially deployed RedLock (Prisma Cloud) as a PoC for that product division. Because it is a large organization, we knew that there were Azure and GCP for other cloud workloads. So, we needed a multi-cloud solution. In my current role, we are primarily running GCP, but we do have some presence in Amazon Web Services as well. So, in both those use cases, the multi-cloud functionality was a big requirement.
We are on the latest version of Prisma Cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
It is very important that Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi-cloud environments, where you have Amazon, Azure, and GCP multiple cloud environments. Being able to centralize all those assets, have visibility, and set some policies and rules within one dashboard when you have multiple cloud accounts is a big advantage.
The comprehensiveness of Prisma Cloud for securing the entire cloud-native development lifecycle was shown when Palo Alto bought Twistlock and integrated in some of the container security pieces, particularly for containers, Docker, and Kubernetes, and building in the Prismic Cloud Compute tab. Having that functionality from Twistlock more focused on Docker and containers filled in some of the space where the original Prisma RedLock piece was a little more focused on just the API, e.g., passive scanning. The integration of Twistlock into Prisma Cloud Compute definitely expanded this functionality into the container and Docker space, which is a big growth area in the cloud as well.
Prisma Cloud has enabled us to take a very strong preventive approach to cloud security. One of the hardest things with cloud is getting visibility into workloads. With Prisma Cloud, you can go in and get that visibility, then set up policies to alert on risky behavior, e.g., if there are security groups or firewall ports open up. So, it is very helpful in preventing configuration errors in the cloud by having visibility. If there are issues, then you can find them and fix them.
Educates and trains cloud operators on how to better design their different cloud and infrastructure deployments. Prisma Cloud has very good remediation steps built in. So, if you do find an issue, they will give you steps on, "Here is how you go into the Console and make this change to close out this issue, preventing this in the future." So, it is a strong tool for the prevention and protection of the cloud, in general.
We have gone in and done some tuning to remove alerts that were false positives. That reduced some of the alerts. Then, as our team has gone in and fixed issues, we have seen from the metrics and tracking of Prisma Cloud that alerts have been reduced.
What is most valuable?
The compliance tabs were helpful just to have visibility into the assets as well as the asset management tabs. In the cloud, everything is very dynamic and ephemeral. So, being able to see dynamic asset inventory for what we have in cloud environments was a huge plus. Just to have that visibility in a dashboard instead of having to dump things into a spreadsheet, e.g., you are trying to do asset inventory and spreadsheets, then five minutes later it changes cause the cloud is dynamic. So, the asset inventory and compliance tabs are strong.
When the cloud team makes a change that may introduce some risk, then we get alerts.
We pretty heavily used the Resource Query Language (RQL) and the investigate tab to find what instances and cloud resources are externally facing and might be higher risk, looking for particular patterns in the resources.
Prisma Cloud provides the following in a single pane of glass within a dashboard: Cloud Security Posture Management, Cloud Workload Protection, Cloud Network Security, and Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management. It is particularly challenging, especially in a multi-cloud environment, where you would have to log into your Google Cloud, then look for your infrastructure and alerting within Google. In addition, you have to switch over to Amazon and log into an AWS Console to do some work with Amazon. Having that central visibility across multiple cloud environments is definitely important when you have different sources and different dashboards for the cloud, which will still be separate, but you still have some centralization within that dashboard.
The solution’s security automation capabilities are definitely good. We use some of the automation within the alerting, where if Prisma Cloud detected a change and there was a certain threshold, e.g., if it was above a medium or a high risk issue, then we would send off an alert that would go to our infrastructure team/Slack channel, creating a Jira ticket. The automation with Slack and Jira have been very good feature points.
The Prisma Cloud tool identifies for the security team the resource in the cloud that is the offender, such as, the context, the resource in the cloud, what is the cloud account, and the cloud environment that the resource is in. Then, there is always very good context on remediation, e.g., how do we go in and fix that issue? Do we either go through automation or log into the Cloud Console to do some remediation? The alerts include the context that is needed as well as the risk ranking and severity, whether it is a high, medium, or low issue.
The Prisma Cloud Console always has good remediation steps, whether it is going into the Console, updating a Cloud Formation, or Terraform scripts. The remediation guidance is always very helpful from Prisma Cloud.
What needs improvement?
Some of the usability within the Compute functionality needs improvement. I think when Palo Alto added on the Twistlock functionality, they added a Compute tab on the left side of the navigation. Some of the navigation is just a little dense. There is a lot of navigation where there is a tab and dropdowns. So, just improving some of the navigation where there is just a very dense amount of buttons and drop-down menus, that is probably the only thing, which comes from having a lot of features. Because there are a lot of buttons, just navigating around the platform can be a little challenging for new users.
They could improve a little bit of the navigation, where I have to kind of look through a lot of the different menus and dropdowns. Part of this just comes from it having so many awesome features. However, the navigation can sometimes be a little bit like, "I can't remember where the tab was," so I have to click and search around. This is not a big negative point, but it is definitely an area for improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using this solution when it was still called RedLock. Before Palo Alto bought RedLock, I used RedLock for about a year and then for another year or two once Palo Alto bought them, rebranding them as Prisma Cloud. So, I have been using it for about three or four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable and solid. We haven't really had any issues with the dashboard. The availability is there. The ability to log in and get near real-time data on our cloud environment is very good. Overall, the stability and accessibility has been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We use it pretty much daily, several days a week. We are licensed for 200 workloads in Prisma Cloud.
We are definitely still working on maturing some of our operations. We have a pretty small infrastructure team; just two engineers who are focused on infrastructure. We are trying to automate as much as we can, and Prisma Cloud supports most of that. There are still some cases where you have to log into the Console and do some clicking around. However, for the most part, we are trying to automate as much as we can to scale those operations with a very small infrastructure and security team.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their customer and technical support is very good. They helped us on scoping, getting an estimate for how many workloads and resources that we had. Their support team helped us through some issues on the configuration in the API on the Defender side. We had a couple questions that came up and the customer success and support engineers were very responsive and helpful.
The sales team was really good. We leveraged some of our relationships, working extensively with some of the leadership at Palo Alto in Unit 42 on their threat team. The sales team gave us a pretty good deal right before the end of the year, last year. So, we were able to get a good discount, so we were able to get the purchase done. Overall, it was a good experience.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This was a new implementation for our company.
How was the initial setup?
Deploying the baseline for Prisma Cloud, its API configuration, was straightforward. To set up the API roles and hook in the API connectivity, we were able to do that within a couple of hours. The Prisma Cloud piece at the API level was very quick. The Defender agents were a bit more complicated because we had to deploy the Compute Defender agents into our containers, Docker, and Kubernetes. That was a little more complex, because we were deploying, not just connecting an API. We were deploying agents within our environment. So, the API side was very simple and fast. The Defender side was a bit more complicated.
We are still working on expanding and deploying some more Defender agents. The API piece was deployed within about a week, which was very fast. On the Defender side, with the infrastructure team's input, it took us several weeks to get the Defender agents deployed.
When we deployed Prisma Cloud, we established some baselines for security and our infrastructure team for what was running in the cloud. They were using some automation and scripting. They thought everything was okay with the script: We just run a script and it deploys this server and infrastructure in the cloud. What we found was that there were some misconfigurations. They had a default script that was opening up some ports that were not needed. So, we worked with the infrastructure team, went back, and said, "Okay, these ports were uncovered with our Prisma Cloud scanning. Is there a business use? Is there any valid reason for these ports to be open?" The team said, "No we don't really need these ports." It was just a default that we need to deploy in Google or AWS. It was just a default that was added in. So, we worked with them to go back and change some of their defaults, then change some of their scripts. Now, in future cases, when they deploy the Terraform script, it would make sure that those ports are automatically closed.
What about the implementation team?
We purchased directly from Palo Alto. We didn't use a system integrator. We purchased directly from them and went through their support team. I have a good relationship with the sales and customer success team at Palo Alto just from past relationships. So, we did a direct purchase.
What was our ROI?
We will eventually see return on investment just out of the automation and the ability to scale the platform up.
We have reduced alert investigation times by approximately a couple hours a week.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is good. They gave us some good discounts right at the end of the year based on the value that it brings, visibility, and the ability to build in cloud, compliance, and security within one dashboard.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look at a couple other vendors who do similar cloud workload protections. Based on the relationships that we have with Palo Alto, we knew that Palo Alto was kind of the leader in this space. We had hands-on experience with the tool and Palo Alto was also a customer of ours. So, we had some strong relationships and Palo Alto was the leader.
We did some demos with different tools that were not as comprehensive. We had some tools that we looked at which just focused more on the container side and some that focused more on the cloud API layer. Since Prisma Cloud has unified some of these different pieces into one platform, we ultimately decided that Prisma Cloud was going to be the best solution for us.
What other advice do I have?
It is a good tool. Work with your stakeholders and cloud teams to implement Prisma Cloud within as many environments as you can to get that rich amount of data, then come up with a strong strategy for integrations and alerting. Prisma Cloud has a lot of integrations out-of-the-box, like ServiceNow, Jira, and Slack. Understand what your business teams need as well as what your engineering and developers need. Try to work on the integrations that allow for the maximum amount of integration and automation within a cloud environment. So, work with your business teams to come up with a plan for how to implement it in your cloud, then how to best integrate the tooling and alerting.
While Prisma Cloud does have the ability to do auto-remediation, which is a part of their automation, we didn't turn any of that on now because those features have a tendency to sometimes break things. For example, it will automatically shut down a security group or server that can sometimes have an impact into availability. So, we don't use any of the auto-remediation features, but we do have automation setup with Jira and Slack to create tickets and events for our ticketing and infrastructure teams/Slack channels.
We definitely want to continue to explore and build-in some of the Shift Left principles, getting the tool into our dev cycles earlier. We do have some plans to expand more on the dev side. I am hiring an AppSec engineer who will be focused more on the development and AppSec side. That is something that is in our roadmap. It has just been something that we have been trying to work on and get into our backlog of a lot of projects.
I would rate this solution as a nine out of 10.
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