Every network security solution which gives you control and visibility comes with one more thing – reporting. From time to time someone asks for a report with very specific information they need, and it has to be delivered.

Process usually looks the same. I go to the solution, search through logs, look for the right columns, and then by trial and error build the report until it shows what was asked. It’s not interesting task from engineer perspective. It’s boring and honestly nobody likes to do it.

AI is everywhere now. In network security it’s not something that can replace engineer work, but it definitely can support it – and reporting and reacting are good areas for that.

Strata AI Canvas

Good example is Strata AI Canvas. It’s part of Strata Cloud Manager Pro, cloud management for Palo Alto Networks firewalls. Firewalls need to send logs to Strata Logging Service – that’s the data SCM Pro is using – and on top of that there is AI Canvas, where I can create widgets and build reports from them.

Now see how simple it is. I just type in natural language what I want to see. AI Canvas gives me back concrete query, I accept it, choose how the report should look like, and report is created for me. See video below

From my tests the solution works quite well. If you manage firewalls from the cloud with SCM Pro, this boring reporting part can be done better and easier than before.

It’s one of the places where AI can be used in network security. It supports, it doesn’t replace. In normal operations and maintenance it won’t replace engineer for a very long time, but as a support it does the job very well.