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    Manage: Policy Optimizer
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    Strata Cloud Manager

    Manage: Policy Optimizer

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    Manage: Policy Optimizer

    Optimize overly permissive security rules so that they only allow applications that are actually in use in your network.
    Where Can I Use This?What Do I Need?
    • Prisma Access
      (with Strata Cloud Manager or Panorama configuration management)
    • NGFW, including those funded by Software NGFW Credits
    • At least one of these licenses is needed to manage your configuration with Strata Cloud Manager; for unified management of NGFWs and Prisma Access, you'll need both:
    → The features and capabilities available to you in Strata Cloud Manager depend on which license(s) you are using.
    Try out Policy Optimizer while it’s available for early access. If you’re interested in continuing to use this future beyond the early access period, check in with your account team.
    Rules that are too broad introduce security gaps because they allow applications that aren’t in use in your network. Policy optimizer enables you to convert these overly permissive rules to more specific, focused rules that only allow the applications you’re actually using.
    Only rules created more than 90 days in the past are considered for policy optimization.

    How It Works

    Strata Cloud Manager analyzes log data and categorizes rules as overly permissive when they are allowing any application traffic, and the rules must be at least 90 days old. These rules can introduce security loopholes, if they’re allowing traffic that’s not necessary for enterprise use.
    For rules identified as overly permissive, Strata Cloud Manager auto-generates recommendations you can accept to optimize the rule. The new, recommended rules are more specific and targeted than the original rule; they explicitly allow only the applications that have been detected in your network in the last 90 days.
    Select an overly permissive rule to review, adjust, and accept optimization recommendations. Replacing these rules with the more specific, recommended rules strengthens your security posture.
    Accepting recommendations to optimize a rule does not remove the original rule. The original rule remains listed below the new rules in your security policy; this is so you can monitor the rule, and remove it when you’re confident that it’s not needed.
    Both the original rule and optimized rules are tagged so you can easily identify them in your security policy:

    Optimize a Rule

    1. Visit Config Cleanup to see if there are rules you can optimize.
      Go to ManageSecurity PosturePolicy Optimizer.
    2. Review overly permissive rules, and choose a rule to see the optimization recommendations.
      If there are multiple overly permissive rules, focus on optimizing the rules that are impacting the most traffic; this’ll give you the most significant gains towards strengthening your security posture.
    3. Review the recommended, optimized rules.
      You can see how much of the original rule’s traffic that each new rule will cover. Note the specific applications that each new rule enforces.
    4. Accept some or all of the rule recommendations.
      Accepting the new, optimized rules adds the rules to your rulebase. They won’t be active just yet; that’ll happen in the next step when you Push Config to Prisma Access.
      Accept All accepts the recommended rules as they are. You can also make changes before accepting the optimized rules:
      • Remove a rule from optimization. Add this rule to a list of rules that you want to exclude from optimization (this time and moving forward).
      • Disable an optimized rule. This means you’re not accepting this rule, and it will not be added to the rulebase.
      • Revert any changes you’ve made. This undoes any edits you’ve made and reverts the rules back to the recommendations.
      • Merge rules. You might decide to do this if you find any of the recommended rules to be similar.
      After you accept the optimized rules, you’ll be prompted to Update Rulebase. When you agree, the optimized rules are added to your security policy. However, they’re not yet enforcing traffic.
    5. Push Config to send the configuration updates to Prisma Access and start enforcing the optimized rules.
    6. Monitor the original rule until you’re confident that you don’t need it.
      The original, overly permissive rules remains in your security policy; it’s listed below the optimized rules in your rulebase and is tagged so you can easily identify it. The tag name appends _original to the rule name (for example, security-rule-name_original).

    Exclude a Rule from Optimization

    Move a rule to the Excluded from Optimization list, and Prisma Access will not optimize it. The rule settings remain as is.
    Make sure to Push Config after moving a rule to the exclusion list; after pushing the configuration, it can take up to 24 hours for the rule to display on the list. You can always choose to add the rule back to the optimization list later.

    Track Optimization Results

    Policy Optimizer shows a history of the security rules you’ve optimized. Historical data includes the optimization results: compare original rule’s traffic coverage against optimized rules.
    The data you see for Policy Optimizer History is for the last 30 days. If an original rule (a rule you optimized) gets no hits for six months, it’s removed from the policy optimizer history and is classified instead as a zero-hit policy rule.

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