Identify Security Policy Rules with Unused Applications
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Next-Generation Firewall Docs
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PAN-OS 11.1 & Later
- PAN-OS 11.1 & Later
- PAN-OS 11.0 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 10.2
- PAN-OS 10.1
- PAN-OS 10.0 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 9.1 (EoL)
- Cloud Management of NGFWs
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- Management Interfaces
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- Launch the Web Interface
- Use the Administrator Login Activity Indicators to Detect Account Misuse
- Manage and Monitor Administrative Tasks
- Commit, Validate, and Preview Firewall Configuration Changes
- Commit Selective Configuration Changes
- Export Configuration Table Data
- Use Global Find to Search the Firewall or Panorama Management Server
- Manage Locks for Restricting Configuration Changes
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- Define Access to the Web Interface Tabs
- Provide Granular Access to the Monitor Tab
- Provide Granular Access to the Policy Tab
- Provide Granular Access to the Objects Tab
- Provide Granular Access to the Network Tab
- Provide Granular Access to the Device Tab
- Define User Privacy Settings in the Admin Role Profile
- Restrict Administrator Access to Commit and Validate Functions
- Provide Granular Access to Global Settings
- Provide Granular Access to the Panorama Tab
- Provide Granular Access to Operations Settings
- Panorama Web Interface Access Privileges
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- Reset the Firewall to Factory Default Settings
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- Plan Your Authentication Deployment
- Pre-Logon for SAML Authentication
- Configure SAML Authentication
- Configure Kerberos Single Sign-On
- Configure Kerberos Server Authentication
- Configure TACACS+ Authentication
- Configure TACACS Accounting
- Configure RADIUS Authentication
- Configure LDAP Authentication
- Configure Local Database Authentication
- Configure an Authentication Profile and Sequence
- Test Authentication Server Connectivity
- Troubleshoot Authentication Issues
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- Keys and Certificates
- Default Trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs)
- Certificate Deployment
- Configure the Master Key
- Export a Certificate and Private Key
- Configure a Certificate Profile
- Configure an SSL/TLS Service Profile
- Configure an SSH Service Profile
- Replace the Certificate for Inbound Management Traffic
- Configure the Key Size for SSL Forward Proxy Server Certificates
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- HA Overview
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- Prerequisites for Active/Active HA
- Configure Active/Active HA
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- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Route-Based Redundancy
- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Addresses
- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with ARP Load-Sharing
- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Floating IP Address Bound to Active-Primary Firewall
- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA with Source DIPP NAT Using Floating IP Addresses
- Use Case: Configure Separate Source NAT IP Address Pools for Active/Active HA Firewalls
- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT
- Use Case: Configure Active/Active HA for ARP Load-Sharing with Destination NAT in Layer 3
- HA Clustering Overview
- HA Clustering Best Practices and Provisioning
- Configure HA Clustering
- Refresh HA1 SSH Keys and Configure Key Options
- HA Firewall States
- Reference: HA Synchronization
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- Use the Dashboard
- Monitor Applications and Threats
- Monitor Block List
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- Report Types
- View Reports
- Configure the Expiration Period and Run Time for Reports
- Disable Predefined Reports
- Custom Reports
- Generate Custom Reports
- Generate the SaaS Application Usage Report
- Manage PDF Summary Reports
- Generate User/Group Activity Reports
- Manage Report Groups
- Schedule Reports for Email Delivery
- Manage Report Storage Capacity
- View Policy Rule Usage
- Use External Services for Monitoring
- Configure Log Forwarding
- Configure Email Alerts
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- Configure Syslog Monitoring
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- Traffic Log Fields
- Threat Log Fields
- URL Filtering Log Fields
- Data Filtering Log Fields
- HIP Match Log Fields
- GlobalProtect Log Fields
- IP-Tag Log Fields
- User-ID Log Fields
- Decryption Log Fields
- Tunnel Inspection Log Fields
- SCTP Log Fields
- Authentication Log Fields
- Config Log Fields
- System Log Fields
- Correlated Events Log Fields
- GTP Log Fields
- Audit Log Fields
- Syslog Severity
- Custom Log/Event Format
- Escape Sequences
- Forward Logs to an HTTP/S Destination
- Firewall Interface Identifiers in SNMP Managers and NetFlow Collectors
- Monitor Transceivers
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- User-ID Overview
- Enable User-ID
- Map Users to Groups
- Enable User- and Group-Based Policy
- Enable Policy for Users with Multiple Accounts
- Verify the User-ID Configuration
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- App-ID Overview
- App-ID and HTTP/2 Inspection
- Manage Custom or Unknown Applications
- Safely Enable Applications on Default Ports
- Applications with Implicit Support
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- Prepare to Deploy App-ID Cloud Engine
- Enable or Disable the App-ID Cloud Engine
- App-ID Cloud Engine Processing and Policy Usage
- New App Viewer (Policy Optimizer)
- Add Apps to an Application Filter with Policy Optimizer
- Add Apps to an Application Group with Policy Optimizer
- Add Apps Directly to a Rule with Policy Optimizer
- Replace an RMA Firewall (ACE)
- Impact of License Expiration or Disabling ACE
- Commit Failure Due to Cloud Content Rollback
- Troubleshoot App-ID Cloud Engine
- Application Level Gateways
- Disable the SIP Application-level Gateway (ALG)
- Maintain Custom Timeouts for Data Center Applications
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- Decryption Overview
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- Keys and Certificates for Decryption Policies
- SSL Forward Proxy
- SSL Forward Proxy Decryption Profile
- SSL Inbound Inspection
- SSL Inbound Inspection Decryption Profile
- SSL Protocol Settings Decryption Profile
- SSH Proxy
- SSH Proxy Decryption Profile
- Profile for No Decryption
- SSL Decryption for Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) Certificates
- Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) Support for SSL Decryption
- SSL Decryption and Subject Alternative Names (SANs)
- TLSv1.3 Decryption
- High Availability Not Supported for Decrypted Sessions
- Decryption Mirroring
- Configure SSL Forward Proxy
- Configure SSL Inbound Inspection
- Configure SSH Proxy
- Configure Server Certificate Verification for Undecrypted Traffic
- Post-Quantum Cryptography Detection and Control
- Enable Users to Opt Out of SSL Decryption
- Temporarily Disable SSL Decryption
- Configure Decryption Port Mirroring
- Verify Decryption
- Activate Free Licenses for Decryption Features
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- Policy Types
- Policy Objects
- Track Rules Within a Rulebase
- Enforce Policy Rule Description, Tag, and Audit Comment
- Move or Clone a Policy Rule or Object to a Different Virtual System
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- External Dynamic List
- Built-in External Dynamic Lists
- Configure the Firewall to Access an External Dynamic List
- Retrieve an External Dynamic List from the Web Server
- View External Dynamic List Entries
- Exclude Entries from an External Dynamic List
- Enforce Policy on an External Dynamic List
- Find External Dynamic Lists That Failed Authentication
- Disable Authentication for an External Dynamic List
- Register IP Addresses and Tags Dynamically
- Use Dynamic User Groups in Policy
- Use Auto-Tagging to Automate Security Actions
- CLI Commands for Dynamic IP Addresses and Tags
- Application Override Policy
- Test Policy Rules
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- Network Segmentation Using Zones
- How Do Zones Protect the Network?
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PAN-OS 11.1 & Later
- PAN-OS 11.1 & Later
- PAN-OS 11.0 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 10.2
- PAN-OS 10.1
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- Tap Interfaces
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- Layer 2 and Layer 3 Packets over a Virtual Wire
- Port Speeds of Virtual Wire Interfaces
- LLDP over a Virtual Wire
- Aggregated Interfaces for a Virtual Wire
- Virtual Wire Support of High Availability
- Zone Protection for a Virtual Wire Interface
- VLAN-Tagged Traffic
- Virtual Wire Subinterfaces
- Configure Virtual Wires
- Configure a PPPoE Client on a Subinterface
- Configure an IPv6 PPPoE Client
- Configure an Aggregate Interface Group
- Configure Bonjour Reflector for Network Segmentation
- Use Interface Management Profiles to Restrict Access
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- DHCP Overview
- Firewall as a DHCP Server and Client
- Firewall as a DHCPv6 Client
- DHCP Messages
- Dynamic IPv6 Addressing on the Management Interface
- Configure an Interface as a DHCP Server
- Configure an Interface as a DHCPv4 Client
- Configure an Interface as a DHCPv6 Client with Prefix Delegation
- Configure the Management Interface as a DHCP Client
- Configure the Management Interface for Dynamic IPv6 Address Assignment
- Configure an Interface as a DHCP Relay Agent
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- DNS Overview
- DNS Proxy Object
- DNS Server Profile
- Multi-Tenant DNS Deployments
- Configure a DNS Proxy Object
- Configure a DNS Server Profile
- Use Case 1: Firewall Requires DNS Resolution
- Use Case 2: ISP Tenant Uses DNS Proxy to Handle DNS Resolution for Security Policies, Reporting, and Services within its Virtual System
- Use Case 3: Firewall Acts as DNS Proxy Between Client and Server
- DNS Proxy Rule and FQDN Matching
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- NAT Rule Capacities
- Dynamic IP and Port NAT Oversubscription
- Dataplane NAT Memory Statistics
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- Translate Internal Client IP Addresses to Your Public IP Address (Source DIPP NAT)
- Create a Source NAT Rule with Persistent DIPP
- PAN-OS
- Strata Cloud Manager
- Enable Clients on the Internal Network to Access your Public Servers (Destination U-Turn NAT)
- Enable Bi-Directional Address Translation for Your Public-Facing Servers (Static Source NAT)
- Configure Destination NAT with DNS Rewrite
- Configure Destination NAT Using Dynamic IP Addresses
- Modify the Oversubscription Rate for DIPP NAT
- Reserve Dynamic IP NAT Addresses
- Disable NAT for a Specific Host or Interface
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- Network Packet Broker Overview
- How Network Packet Broker Works
- Prepare to Deploy Network Packet Broker
- Configure Transparent Bridge Security Chains
- Configure Routed Layer 3 Security Chains
- Network Packet Broker HA Support
- User Interface Changes for Network Packet Broker
- Limitations of Network Packet Broker
- Troubleshoot Network Packet Broker
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- Enable Advanced Routing
- Logical Router Overview
- Configure a Logical Router
- Create a Static Route
- Configure BGP on an Advanced Routing Engine
- Create BGP Routing Profiles
- Create Filters for the Advanced Routing Engine
- Configure OSPFv2 on an Advanced Routing Engine
- Create OSPF Routing Profiles
- Configure OSPFv3 on an Advanced Routing Engine
- Create OSPFv3 Routing Profiles
- Configure RIPv2 on an Advanced Routing Engine
- Create RIPv2 Routing Profiles
- Create BFD Profiles
- Configure IPv4 Multicast
- Configure MSDP
- Create Multicast Routing Profiles
- Create an IPv4 MRoute
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PAN-OS 11.2
- PAN-OS 11.2
- PAN-OS 11.1
- PAN-OS 11.0 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 10.2
- PAN-OS 10.1
- PAN-OS 10.0 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 9.1 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 9.0 (EoL)
- PAN-OS 8.1 (EoL)
- Cloud Management and AIOps for NGFW
Identify Security Policy Rules with Unused Applications
Policy Optimizer finds Security policy rules that specify
applications not seen on your network so you can remove the unused
apps to reduce the attack surface.
If you have application-based Security policy
rules that allow a large number of applications, you can remove
unused applications (applications never seen on the rules) to tighten
those rules so that they only allow applications actually seen in
traffic that matches the rule. Identifying and removing unused applications
from Security policy rules is a best practice that strengthens your
security posture by reducing the attack surface.
- Identify Security policy rules that have unused applications.PoliciesSecurityPolicy OptimizerUnused Apps displays all application-based rules that are configured with applications that have not matched (been seen on) the rule. This means that these rules allow applications that you may not use in your network (or that another rule shadows the rule, so traffic that you expect to match the rule matches an earlier rule in the rulebase).The number of Apps Allowed and Apps Seen are updated approximately every hour, so if you configure applications on a rule and don’t see as many Apps Allowed as you expect, check again after about an hour. Depending on the firewall’s load, it may take longer than one hour for these fields to update.
- Prioritize which rules with unused applications to modify first.PoliciesSecurityPolicy OptimizerUnused Apps enables you to sort rules without affecting their order in the rulebase and provides other information that helps you prioritize rules to clean up based on your business goals and risk tolerance.
- The difference between Apps Allowed (the number of applications on the allow list) and Apps Seen (the number of allowed applications actually seen on the rule) shows how many applications are configured on each rule but not actually seen on the rule, which indicates to what extent the rule is over-provisioned. Click Apps Allowed to sort by the number of applications allowed in a rule and click Apps Seen to sort by the number of applications actually seen on a rule.
- Days with No New Apps (click to sort) shows you the number of days since the last time a new application hit the rule. This indicates how likely it is that the rule is mature and won’t see any applications that haven’t already been seen. The longer the Days with No New Apps, the less likely that new applications will hit the rule and the more likely that you know all the applications the rule allows.
- Created and Modified dates also help determine whether a rule has matured enough to understand whether applications not seen on the rule may be seen at a later date or if the rule has seen all the applications expected to hit the rule. The longer the time since a rule was Modified, the more likely the rule is mature. (If Created and Modified are the same, the rule hasn’t been modified.)
- Hit Count—Displays rules with the most matches over a selected time frame. You can exclude rules for which you reset the hit counter and specify the exclusion time period in days. Excluding rules with recently reset hit counters prevents misconceptions about rules that show fewer hits than you expect because you didn’t know the counter was reset.You can also use Hit Count to View Policy Rule Usage.
You can also click Traffic (Bytes, 30 days) to sort by the amount of traffic a rule has seen over the last 30 days. Use this information to prioritize which rules to modify first. For example, you can prioritize rules with the largest difference between Apps Allowed and Apps Seen and that also have the most Days with No New Apps, because those rules have the greatest number of unused applications and are the most mature. - Review the Apps Seen on the rule.On Unused Apps, click Compare or the number in the Apps Seen column to open Applications & Usage, which shows the applications configured on the rule (Apps on Rule) and the Apps Seen on the rule.
- The number next to Apps Seen (10 in this example) is the number of applications that matched the rule. Keep in mind that it takes at least one hour for the firewall to update Apps Seen.
- The number next to Apps on Rule (35 in this example) is how many applications are configured on the rule, which is calculated by counting each application in a container app (but not the container app itself—if you configure a container app on the rule, the rule allows the container app’s individual applications). Because the Applications list shows only the applications you configure manually on the rule, when you configure a container app on a rule, Applications only shows the container app, not all of the individual applications in the container (unless you also manually configure the individual applications on the rule). For this reason, the number of Apps on Rule may not be the same as the number of applications you see in the Applications list.
- Click the number next to Apps on Rule to see all of the individual applications on the rule.This example rule has 10 Apps Seen (applications that matched the rule) but allows 35 Apps on Rule. The facebook container app is configured on the rule and the rule sees traffic from the individual applications facebook-base, facebook-chat, and facebook-video (Apps Seen). When you click the Apps on Rule number, the Apps on Rule dialog displays the individual applications allowed, but not the container app itself.You cannot add or delete applications from the pop-up dialog.
Compare the Apps Seen on the rule to the Apps on Rule. If an application on the rule isn’t used (you don’t see the application or you don’t see applications in an allowed container in Apps Seen), consider removing the application from the rule to reduce the attack surface. Take into account periodically used applications, such as for quarterly or annual events, which may look unused if you don’t examine a long enough time frame. Timeframe enables you to select the time frame for the Apps Seen on the rule. Select Anytime to see every application seen over the life of the rule. Depending on the Created or Modified date in the No App Specified dialog and the time between periodic events, the rule may not have been on the firewall long enough to see all periodically used applications. - Remove unused applications from the rule.Delete (or Add) applications in Apps on Rule to remove (or add) applications manually, or Match Usage to add the Apps Seen on the rule and delete applications for which no matching traffic has been seen on the rule with one click.To remove applications from the rule manually, select applications from Apps on Rule and Delete them. Ensure that none of the applications are required for periodic events before you remove them from the rule. (You can also add or delete applications on the Security policy rule’s Application tab.)Match Usage moves the Apps Seen on the rule to Apps on Rule and removes all unused applications from the rule.You can clone rules from PoliciesSecurity and from No App Specified to Migrate Port-Based to App-ID Based Security Policy Rules. You can’t clone a rule starting from Unused Apps.
- Commit the configuration.
- Monitor updated rules and listen to user feedback to ensure that updated rules allow the applications you want to allow and don’t inadvertently block periodically used applications.The number of Apps Allowed and Apps Seen are updated approximately every hour. After you remove all of the unused applications from a rule, the rule remains listed in PoliciesSecurityPolicy OptimzerUnused Apps until the firewall updates the display. When the firewall updates the display and the number of Apps Allowed is the same as the number of Apps Seen, the rule no longer displays in the Unused Apps screen. However, depending on the firewall’s load, it may take longer than one hour for these fields to update.