Palo Alto Networks

United States
Joined June 2009
Seriously - the only attraction for me to do this, is the ability for me to be able to say it in my words, when I want, and how I want. Yes, I will make sure to the best of my ability to follow rules re: public company fiduciaries and dissemination of information. But the idea that someone else crafts your communication and tweets for you - is not better than giving an interview to a publication and worry that the journalist will cherry pick to validate their narrative. Control the narrative and the consequences by doing it yourself.
You're one of the few large company CEOs that seems to be writing their own tweets and they are interesting so you should continue
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That chicken puff is not to be messed with.
no butter chicken? 😉
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In non cybersecurity news - loving the Eylan brunch menu @CPChefSri
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But they don't know that yet :)
Replying to @nikesharora
And most important of all is that you and I recorded a podcast together
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It's been an eventful week. Multiple vulnerabilites in Internet facing software, coding repositories, examples of agent behavior that seem concerning and a flurry of security specialists with solutions that can partially solve your problem. There in lies the challenge. Given the state of IT and security infrastructure, no one solution works. Let's break it down: 1/3 1. Vulnerabilites are being found and will continue to be found as models get more capable, the fragmented nature of the effort denies us the opportunity for a comprehensive find and replace option. 2. Even if all vulnerabilities could be found instantly and patches available - we will be reliant on the ability of enterprises to deploy all these changes at speed. It is not clear what the collateral impact of all these patches will/could be to our infrastructure of deployed en masse. We will need a hybrid patch approach. 3. Virtual patching(VP) is needed in conjunction with direct patching but for a comprehensive (VP) solve you have to be lucky enough to have "modern frontier defenders" (Cyber companies that have vaulted infrastructure that can create patches at speed and push content rapidly to protect their customers) you need them for your network traffic, your traffic to applications on the cloud, your WAF, your end point. 4. There will continue to be patches that will need to be deployed directly but virtual patching will take the heavy load off. 2/3 Medium term solve: Unfortunately token economics and current cyber architectures will not allow for defender swarms to contend with an offensive attack launched using agents. (Some x pundits who aren't steeped in cyber should take heed). Yes, theoretically we should aspire to have these agentic swarms defend us when we are under attack, unfortunately an attack is a sniper moment, chained vulnerabilities, cloaked attack followed by swift exfiltration. It's a speed program not a brute force problem. To solve for this, enterprises need to get their SOC architecture right, logs, feeds, cyber products orchestrated via a modern SOAR for swift response. Only then can we deploy agents to detect and remediate. In addition, enterprises need to modernize and dare I say platformize their perimeter stack to ensure consistency. Unfortunately, enterprises still seem to not see the urgency across the board, decisions are stuck, CIO/CISO's have a lot on their plate. While some honestly have bit seen the scale of such a problem before and it's hard convincing the organization that one needs to open the floodgates on modernizing the IT and security infrastructure. So we will continue to see environments being brought down to patch today it's for PHP, tomorrow it will be for the next one. 3/3 AI deployments are the"wild wild west" - LLM capabilities are expanding faster than we can build products to secure them. Sure an agent will jump across guardrails in a research lab, which is a lesson for all of us to deploy agents securely. But there is a lag between the discovery, the availability of that in a public model and the time needed for the cyber industry to build governance or an antidote. And no, dear frontier lab friends, the world cannot just trust you to build the solve. The infrastructure industry in tech builds and the cyber industry secured and provides assurance to the boards and organizations around security and safety. AI security is the new attack surface. CEOs (present company included) want AI adoption, getting the pace of adoption wrong could be the last decision we make, at the same time "deploying it wrong" could have the same consequence. There are billions of dollars being spent on coding, is your coding harness secure? Start there. If agents can jump guardrails, they can hide stuff in code. Validate business outcomes needed, test your user case and ensure agentic deployments are well guard railed. Deploy a second set of eyes to watch your deployments for drift, compliance and verifiability.
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Lol. We all want our LLMs to respond faster, to be smarter, to not hallucinate. Agents have just made an appearance on the scene, wait till every app is rewritten on your iPhone and it's interacting with agents. Enterprises are in the first innings of AI adoption, coding is diffusing and promises to continue to grow. As models get smarter, it will open up more applications and use cases - so yes demand is insatiable and it has nothing to do with security. Of course, security will introduce trust to enterprises who want to adopt AI. Have you tried to get your hands on compute? CPU and GPU? It takes 3/4 times the spend to deliver a MW compared to 2 years ago. There send to be no respite for another 24 months at least, hoping compression techniques, advances on technology will relieve some of the pressure and things normalize in due course.
Replying to @firesidealpha
@nikesharora Palo Alto Networks generates massive revenue by securing AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud environments. By publicly positioning these hyperscalers as the ultimate power brokers of the AI era, the "owners of scarce compute", he aligns perfectly with his most critical go-to-market partners. If compute is an incredibly scarce, highly contested resource, protecting the cloud architectures housing it becomes an existential priority for enterprises. This narrative justifies massive security budgets and premium pricing for cloud posture management platforms to lock down high-value AI workloads. Describing demand as "insatiable" and compute as "scarce" accelerates enterprise anxiety. Companies rushing to secure their cloud footprint and deploy models before they are priced out of the GPU rental market will rapidly expand their cloud infrastructure, directly pulling security spending forward with it.
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We did that first thing this morning. paloaltonetworks.com/blog/20…
Replying to @nikesharora
As a vendor, I understand this would be out of your support terms and so on, but would you mind sending an advisory out pointing to this vulnerability and a fix if possible with high priority emails out to all your customers? People tend to take Palo Alto security advisories seriously. Thank you. @nikesharora
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You know it's serious when heads of state get involved.
皆様に、今夜に対応して頂きたい大至急のお願いです。   多くのウェブサイトで使用されているPHPに関し、PHPのセキュリティチームが、重大な2件の脆弱性に関する注意喚起を行っています。   公開しているウェブサイトでPHPを使用しているか確認し、今夜、10月21日午後11時(日本時間)に公開される修正パッチについて、可及的速やかに適用できるよう準備をお願いします。   修正パッチを速やかに適用することが困難な場合は、例えばウェブサイト等を一時的に停止させることも、リスクを低減させるための有効策の一つと考えられます。   国家サイバー統括室のXアカウントでも関係する情報を発信していますので、そちらも参考にして下さい。 国家サイバー統括室(注意・警戒情報)(@cyber_forecast) / X
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Will have to try harder or @michaelpwalrath and I will settle it on the golf course :).
Damn. Thanks….I think. 😜
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You should read my sequel to the ninja move post. I suggested that the original ninja move could actually backfire if we didn't change our approach as an industry to focus on benefits and instead turn to delivering this technology safely, securely yet still at pace. It is not possible to pace open source even if you got some frontier labs to collaborate switch would continue to define the pace.
Today, Nikesh decided not to directly address the question @davidfaber from @CNBC posed about Nikesh's X posts. This is the move of an experienced executive, avoiding a PR nightmare by staying out of muddy ground. It also allowed Nikesh to stay on message for the interview, the message that he and Jay Clayton wanted to get across. Not sure it did much to convince the American people that Nikesh's view has changed since these posts, and who would expect them to after only a few weeks. Of course, most of the people watching #CNBC probably care more about the AI trade staying in place, than some abstract concept of safety that few can probably understand anyway. One of Nikesh's previous criticisms of people who had raised AI safety concerns was that it might derail the #AI trade. Given security companies were impacted by the #Saasapocalypse, that might be understandable. Nonetheless, it is hard to escape the perception that the people leading the #superintellgence effort, continue to have mixed feelings, at best, about the people who got this whole conversation started. #security #safety #alignment youtu.be/J-zZq7x9Jj0?si=hza9…
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Free wisdom for those of you opining on my last tweet. It's easy to cast individuals away because you disagree with something they did or their opinions. When I turned 40, I turned a corner and decided to appreciate the good in someone for their act, for the moment and for what they did. My friends are my friends and I respect many people for their achievements in various fields, but I wouldn't have them work on stuff In other areas. An absolutist bar on each human is a recipe for failure. I expect things from people, but I don't expect them to be perfect. If their heart is in the right place, and their intent on the matter at hand is well placed, I respect the effort.
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Thank you @agarfinks and @FortuneMagazine for featuring us @PaloAltoNtwks
Cybersecurity’s AI reckoning has arrived, and @PaloAltoNtwks CEO @nikesharora has become a go-to adviser to CEOs. bit.ly/4z16ena
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The meeting at the WH on SI was an epic moment. The good and the great of AI (SI) showed up from all over, I was just happy to be in the room. First and foremost I felt that @realDonaldTrump showed us what a true leader is. He was thoughtful and focussed on ensuring that SI was developed at pace and was going to be deployed safely and securely. He encouraged the room to focus on the positive impacts of technology, demonstrate the true benefits of the technology for each and every one out there. His message was clear - engage with communities get grassroots support for what is going to be a pivotal moment for America and the world. He was statesmanlike and clearly focussed on the US winning the SI race. The focus needs to be how to ensure what is being built is safe and useful. There are enough laws and regulatory frameworks that allow for effective governance we don't need more. What we need is: 1. Accountability by the labs 2. we need SI to have the right APIs available for cybercontrols and third party governance and 3. We need equal focus on diffusion of this technology in a useful and effective manner. We all walked away with continued and renewed enthusiasm to bring on the SI future. When you get cyber companies focussing on furthering a technology you have already moved the needle.
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Conceptually you can access APIs for control panels in the enterprise use case. The API and MCP is less of an issue - the access, audit, ownership of actions and liability is. In the enterprise use case, one who accesses is responsible.
Replying to @nikesharora
Couldn't agree more. @nikesharora do you take the same approach for Palo products? E.g will an "enterprise muse" be able to configure NGFW?
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This aged well, Muse and Instinct took longer than expected.
Lol. A string of connected tasks. Like book me a trip and a restaurant for lunch in one task. So you have to interface with two back ends. My point is, we will need an agent exchange, broker, or rules of engagement. Our current app owners will fight for owning the customer and resist agent APIs.
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This will be a bigger battle than anyone anticipates. It is only a matter of time before there is an Apple and Google version of Muse and possibly TikTok, in addition to the frontier LLM agents. Maybe a commerce agent from Amazon. Every app that is a services, marketplace or commerce app will need to existentially decide to open APIs for consumer agents to interact. Smaller players have no choice. Ad revenues are more than transaction fees, either the consumer benefits or distribution aggregators will demand a higher transaction fare. I know I don't want an agent for each app. I would like my agent to be able to do tasks I require. We can already see consumers getting trained on that behavior by the frontier labs. Those with network moats - restaurants, groceries, drivers might be able to withstand for a while, over time convenience and end user experience will win and they will have to align. Content moats (protected by copyright) could decide to allow agents or chose to hold on to the consumer interaction. I suspect other than the feeling of a lack of control, it won't change their economics. Commoditized back ends will need to worry, insurance, tickets, hotels, services - if they don't adapt new players will.
Amazon cuts off Muse. While I am bullish Meta and Muse, I think many people are overlooking the digital knife fight that’s about to occur Nobody wants to get commoditized or layered here. Let the games begin
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Well said. Agree.
Replying to @nikesharora
I think this is exactly where alignment gets difficult. It’s not just about preventing the model from jumping guardrails. It’s about setting the right constraints so it consistently chooses to operate within them. But then comes the harder question: whose rules? Easy examples create false confidence because most of us agree on the answer. The real alignment problem lives in edge cases where values conflict, context matters, and reasonable people disagree. That’s where I think alignment stops being purely a model problem and starts becoming a governance problem.
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It did :)
Replying to @nikesharora
Sequels are usually where the plot gets complicated.
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