MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Global cybersecurity leader Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW) partnered with the country’s leading bank in innovation, UnionBank of the Philippines (UnionBank), to enhance security and protect vulnerable digital infrastructure. The partnership also strengthens PANW’s commitment to protecting Filipinos online amid new challenges plaguing the sector.

Leading the country’s digitization of financial services, UnionBank has become more susceptible to attacks. According to the Palo Alto Networks State of Cybersecurity 2022, financial institutions in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia are prime targets for cyberattacks. 

“The rule of thumb is quite simple, really. As your customer base grows, so does your technology footprint with respect to cybersecurity. The bigger your digital and information assets are, the bigger the target you are for cybercriminals,” shared Joey Rufo, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer & Data Protection Officer at UnionBank. “We are extremely cognisant of our security partners and their credentials to leverage their solutions and help us scale our security to keep away potential risks and attacks. It is imperative that we maintain a high-security posture.”

UnionBank required a comprehensive cybersecurity solution that would secure on-premise and cloud infrastructure, adhere to regulatory requirements, scale security operations to support innovation, replace legacy systems, and create consistency in solution deployment for its digital transformation initiatives. In response, PANW equipped UnionBank with next-generation firewall (NGFW) capabilities and enhanced access to real-time threat intelligence that dissected and inspected traffic to prevent threats in the bank’s digital platform. 

The machine learning-powered NGFW classifies all applications on all ports, all the time. It enforces security policies for any user, anywhere, and extends native protection across all attack vectors with cloud-delivered security subscriptions to consolidate Threat Prevention, URL filtering, and anti-malware. The automatable virtual machine series and virtual NGFWs are also scalable to seamlessly deploy in any virtual or cloud environment.

“UnionBank realized a 50% time reduction in conducting real-time threat intelligence after securing our infrastructure with Palo Alto Networks. We are also confident that these benefits will extend to our cloud environment,” added Rufo. 

“Our collaboration with the country’s leading digital bank empowers us to understand the gaps in protection and drive innovative solutions that will protect Filipinos against the increasing number of financial threats such as phishing and malware,” concluded Oscar Visaya, country manager for the Philippines at Palo Alto Networks.

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