: Enable IoT Device Visibility in Prisma SD-WAN
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Enable IoT Device Visibility in Prisma SD-WAN

Table of Contents

Enable IoT Device Visibility in
Prisma SD-WAN

Learn how to enable IoT Device Visibility in
Prisma SD-WAN
. It also lists details such as IP address, MAC address, vendor details, and so on, for greater visibility.
Prisma SD-WAN
with
Strata Cloud Manager
supports IoT device visibility to identify devices in your network.
Prisma SD-WAN
branch ION devices inspect packets, extract information, and generate messages to send to
Cortex Data Lake
in a specific format. IoT Security obtains this information from
Cortex Data Lake
and lists all the devices discovered in its portal. It also lists details such as IP address, MAC address, vendor details, and so on, for greater visibility.
IoT Security
must have visibility into network traffic to discover, identify, and monitor the network behaviors of devices.
When integrating IoT Security with Prisma Access,
IoT Security
relies on the Traffic logs that
Prisma Access
provides to analyze traffic at the branch sites that
Prisma Access
serves. Although
Prisma Access
can log outbound and inbound traffic from the sites it protects, it can't log traffic that never reaches it; that is, the traffic between devices at the same branch site.
Of particular importance to
IoT Security
is network traffic with services such as DHCP and ARP that link an IP address assigned to a device with its MAC address. In an environment where devices are assigned IP addresses dynamically through DHCP, it's difficult to use IP addresses alone to track the network activity of devices because they can each have multiple IP addresses over a period of time. By having visibility into DHCP traffic,
IoT Security
can update the IP address of a device when it changes. Similarly, by having visibility into ARP traffic (gratuitous ARP announcements, for example),
IoT Security
can track how IP addresses correspond to device MAC addresses.
Once
IoT Security
has an IP address-to-device mapping, it can use its AI and machine learning engines to monitor and analyze the network activities of the device over time. It can form a baseline of the normal device network behaviors, determine its identity, inform you of any known vulnerabilities, and detect anomalous network behaviors indicating risk.
When a DHCP server is at a branch site, DHCP traffic will never reach
Prisma Access
. Neither will ARP traffic, which only occurs within a Layer 2 broadcast domain. But, it's possible for ION devices at branch sites to see DHCP traffic. If they’re in the same Layer 2 broadcast domain, then the branch ION devices can also see the ARP traffic that devices generate. When integrated with
IoT Security
,
Prisma SD-WAN
ION devices log this traffic and forward their logs to
Cortex Data Lake
where
IoT Security
accesses them for analysis.
To support IoT device visibility in
Prisma SD-WAN
, you need the following licenses and subscriptions in the same tenant service group (TSG) that
Prisma SD-WAN
belongs to:
IoT Security
depends on the information extracted from the IoT device traffic, such as DHCP & ARP, for device classification and risk assessment. Prior to Release 6.3.1, users adopting
IoT Security
lacked visibility into the traffic generated by IoT devices that was local to the branch, or traveled via WAN links outside of
Prisma Access
. This limited the scope of visibility to directly connected devices or to packets that traversed the
Prisma SD-WAN
branch ION device.
Starting with Release 6.3.1,
Prisma SD-WAN
supports the discovery of devices not directly connected to the
Prisma SD-WAN
branch ION devices. The system uses SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) with LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) to discover IoT devices within a branch network.
Prisma SD-WAN
does not support Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) to discover devices.
With LLDP, each IoT device transmits its device information to its neighboring networking devices (such as switches and routers). This information is available in the Management Information databases (MIBs). The ION device launches an SNMP MIB (management information base) query to retrieve the IP address and MAC address entries of the IoT devices.
The ION device then retrieves the LLDP neighbors of the neighboring devices, one at time to get their IP or MAC address bindings. This process of recursively discovering the devices known as “crawling” continues until the ION device discovers all its neighbors.
The ION device sends the discovered IP or MAC address bindings (along with information such as VLAN, subnets, and so on) as part of the Enhanced Application logs (EAL) to
Cortex Data Lake
.
IoT Security
consumes these logs and provides visibility in the
IoT Security
portal.
You might need to modify security in the IoT devices to allow SNMP from a new source.
The following steps explain how to onboard
IoT Security
and
Prisma SD-WAN
to
Prisma Access
as add-ons and how
Prisma SD-WAN
ION devices extend
IoT Security
visibility into their branch sites.
  1. Add
    IoT Security
    and
    Prisma SD-WAN
    as
    Prisma Access
    add-ons.
    Follow the steps in Activate a License for Panorama-Managed , and ensure to include
    IoT Security
    and
    Prisma SD-WAN
    as add-ons. You can onboard them together or at different times.
    When you onboard and enable both
    IoT Security
    and
    Prisma SD-WAN
    to a
    Prisma Access (Panorama Managed)
    account, the
    Prisma SD-WAN
    Controller automatically enables IoT device visibility on ION devices at all branch sites that belong to the corresponding tenant service group (TSG). The
    Prisma SD-WAN
    Controller learns the ID and FQDN of the
    Cortex Data Lake
    instance in its TSG and automatically gets the device certificate and distributes it to ION devices to use when authenticating themselves to
    Cortex Data Lake
    . The controller then instructs the ION devices to log the DHCP and ARP traffic they detect on their networks and forward their logs to
    Cortex Data Lake
    .
    ION devices send ARP Traffic logs by default but you must configure them as either a DHCP relay agent or DHCP server to send DHCP Traffic logs to
    Cortex Data Lake
    .
    IoT Security
    accesses the log data in
    Cortex Data Lake
    and uses machine learning algorithms to analyze it. Through its analysis,
    IoT Security
    discovers and identifies devices on the network and deduces their usual network behaviors.
    IoT Security
    generates alerts when there is anomalous network activity and detects device vulnerabilities and potential threats. You can view the results of its analysis in the
    IoT Security portal
    .
  2. (Optional)
    Control the sites that can forward logs to the
    Cortex Data Lake
    from the
    Prisma SD-WAN
    web interface.
    When a TSG for
    Prisma Access
    includes both
    IoT Security
    and
    Prisma SD-WAN
    add-ons, it
    Prisma SD-WAN
    enables
    IoT Security
    visibility by default on the ION devices at all the branch sites.
    However, if you want to disable it on a particular site, pre-logon to
    Prisma SD-WAN
    , select
    Workflows
    Sites
    , select the site, and toggle
    IoT Device Visibility
    off. This disables IoT Device Visibility on all ION devices at that site.
  3. View device information learned from
    Prisma SD-WAN
    sites in the
    IoT Security
    portal.
    1. Navigate to the
      IoT Security
      portal and select the
      Devices
      tab to view device details.
      After
      IoT Security
      receives data in Traffic logs from
      Prisma SD-WAN
      ION devices and starts discovering and identifying network-connected devices at branch sites, it displays its findings in the
      Inventory
      table on the
      Devices
      page in the
      IoT Security
      portal. For each device that
      IoT Security
      learned from
      Prisma SD-WAN
      , it displays various device attributes such as its IP and MAC address, device category, vendor, model, and OS as well as several identifying attributes of the ION devices that provided the logs such as:
      • Prisma SD-WAN
        site name
      • Prisma SD-WAN
        device name
      • Prisma SD-WAN
        interface name
    2. (Optional)
      Click a device to view details such as
      Prisma SD-WAN
      site, device, and interface names.

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