Security Profile: Antivirus
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Security Profile: Antivirus

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Security Profile: Antivirus

Scan for a wide variety of malware in executables, PDF files, HTML and JavaScript malware, including support for scanning inside compressed files and data encoding schemes.
Where Can I Use This?What Do I Need?
  • NGFW (Cloud Managed)
  • NGFW (PAN-OS & Panorama Managed)
  • Prisma Access (Cloud Managed)
  • Prisma Access (Panorama Managed)
Check for any license or role requirements for the products you're using.
Antivirus profiles protect against malware, worms, and trojans as well as spyware downloads. Using a stream-based malware prevention engine, which inspects traffic the moment the first packet is received, the Palo Alto Networks antivirus solution can provide protection for clients without significantly impacting the performance. This profile scans for a wide variety of malware in executables, PDF files, HTML and JavaScript malware, including support for scanning inside compressed files and data encoding schemes. If you have enabled decryption, the profile also enables scanning of decrypted content.
The default profile inspects all of the listed protocol decoders for malware, and generates alerts for SMTP, IMAP, and POP3 protocols while blocking for FTP, HTTP, and SMB protocols. You can configure the action for a decoder or antivirus signature and specify how to respond to a threat event:
  • Default—For each threat signature and antivirus signature that is defined by Palo Alto Networks, a default action is specified internally. Typically, the default action is an alert or a reset-both. The default action is displayed in parentheses , for example default (alert) in the threat or antivirus signature.
  • Allow—Permits the application traffic.
    The Allow action does not generate logs related to the signatures or profiles.
  • Alert—Generates an alert for each application traffic flow. The alert is saved in the Threat log.
  • Drop—Drops the application traffic.
  • Reset Client—For TCP, resets the client-side connection. For UDP, drops the connection.
  • Reset Server—For TCP, resets the server-side connection. For UDP, drops the connection.
  • Reset Both—For TCP, resets the connection on both client and server ends. For UDP, drops the connection.
Customized profiles can be used to minimize antivirus inspection for traffic between trusted security zones, and to maximize the inspection of traffic received from untrusted zones, such as the internet, as well as the traffic sent to highly sensitive destinations, such as server farms.
The Palo Alto Networks WildFire system also provides signatures for persistent threats that are more evasive and have not yet been discovered by other antivirus solutions. As threats are discovered by WildFire, signatures are quickly created and then integrated into the standard antivirus signatures that can be downloaded by Threat Prevention subscribers on a daily basis (sub-hourly for WildFire subscribers).

Configure an Antivirus Profile

Configure an Antivirus Profile (Strata Cloud Manager)

Scan for a wide variety of malware in executables, PDF files, HTML and JavaScript malware, including support for scanning inside compressed files and data encoding schemes.
Configure options to have your configuration scan for malware on the defined traffic. Set the applications that should be inspected for malware and the action to take when malware is detected. The default profile inspects all of the listed protocol decoders for malware, generates alerts for Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3), and takes the default action for other applications (alert or deny), depending on the type of malware detected. The profile will then be attached to a Security rule to determine the traffic traversing specific zones that will be inspected. Customized profiles can be used to minimize antivirus inspection for traffic between trusted security zones, and to maximize the inspection of traffic received from untrusted zones, such as the internet, as well as the traffic sent to highly sensitive destinations, such as server farms.
  1. Go to ManageConfigurationNGFW and Prisma AccessSecurity ServicesWildfire and Antivirus.
  2. Add Profile.
  3. Give your profile a Name that tells other administrators what it does.
  4. Give a Description of the purpose of this profile for easy reference and reuse later.
  5. On the Enforcement Actions panel, specify the decoder action for each protocol.
    The actions for each protocol will be common for WildFire signatures, antivirus signatures, and WildFire Inline Machine Learning.
  6. Select the checkbox for Packet Capture if you want to take packet captures (pcaps) of traffic that traverses your configuration.
    You can then use the captured data for troubleshooting purposes or creating custom application signatures.
  7. (Optional) Add Exceptions on the Advanced Settings tab:
    • Add Signature Exceptions to exclude specific signatures from enforcement.
    • Add File Exceptions to exclude files from WildFire Inline ML, based on a partial hash.
    • Add Application Exceptions to override the default WildFire/Antivirus action for specific applications.
  8. (Optional) On the WildFire Inline Machine Learning Models tab, set the action for each model.
  9. Save your configuration.
    An Antivirus profile is only active when it’s included in a profile group that a Security policy rule references. Follow the steps to activate an Antivirus profile (and any Security profile).

Configure an Antivirus Profile (PAN-OS & Panorama)

Scan for a wide variety of malware in executables, PDF files, HTML and JavaScript malware, including support for scanning inside compressed files and data encoding schemes.
Configure options to have the firewall scan for malware on the defined traffic. Set the applications that should be inspected for malware and the action to take when malware is detected. The default profile inspects all of the listed protocol decoders for malware, generates alerts for Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3), and takes the default action for other applications (alert or deny), depending on the type of malware detected. The profile will then be attached to a Security rule to determine the traffic traversing specific zones that will be inspected. Customized profiles can be used to minimize antivirus inspection for traffic between trusted security zones, and to maximize the inspection of traffic received from untrusted zones, such as the internet, as well as the traffic sent to highly sensitive destinations, such as server farms.
  1. Go to ObjectsSecurity ProfilesAntivirus.
  2. Add a profile.
  3. Give your profile a Name that tells other administrators what it does.
  4. Give a Description of the purpose of this profile for easy reference and reuse later.
  5. On the Actions tab, specify the decoder action for each protocol.
    You can set independent actions for WildFire signatures, antivirus signatures, and WildFire Inline Machine Learning.
  6. Select the checkbox for Enable Packet Capture if you want to take packet captures (pcap) of traffic that traverses your configuration.
    You can then use the captured data for troubleshooting purposes or creating custom application signatures.
  7. Select the checkbox for Enable Hold Mode for Real-Time Signature Lookup if you want the NGFW to hold the transfer of a sample while the real-time signature cloud performs a signature lookup.
  8. (Optional) Add Application Exceptions to override the default antivirus action for specific applications.
  9. (Optional) Add signature exceptions on the Signature Exceptions tab to exclude specific signatures from enforcement.
  10. (Optional) On the WildFire Inline ML tab, add file exceptions to exclude files from WildFire Inline ML, based on a partial hash, and set actions for each of the available WildFire Inline Machine Learning models.
  11. Select OK to save your configuration.