Cybersecurity software company Palo Alto Networks has won a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense that will increase access to Palo Alto products and cut down on the complexity of the selection process.
Under the DOD Enterprise Software Initiative program contract, Palo Alto will enable entities within the DOD and U.S. Intelligence Community to anticipate and fulfill cybersecurity needs down the line as well as complete their Program Objective Memorandum budgeting, the Santa Clara, California-based company said Tuesday.
“The ability to get leading-edge cybersecurity solutions faster from Palo Alto Networks into mission-critical environments can help agencies accelerate their efforts to enhance their security posture and improve the nation’s defenses,” explained Scott Widdifield, global director of defense sales at Palo Alto.
Although many Palo Alto products are already available to DOD and IC agencies via contract vehicles such as General Services Administration Schedule and Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement, the DOD ESI contract reportedly offers a more efficient and less bureaucratic process for procurement of company goods like Prisma Cloud and Cortex and their firewall platforms.
The DOD ESI contract also automatically confirms that a given purchase agreement of the Palo Alto products obeys Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement.
Additionally, the contract is aimed to assist agencies with the Zero Trust policy adoption that was codified by President Biden’s March Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. The newfound Palo Alto product availability is seen as a step toward broader digital transformation and information technology modernization in the DOD and IC.
Working with Palo Alto on the DOD ESI contract will be consistent partners and government-serving IT distributors immixGroup and Carahsoft Technology Group.
In January, it was announced that Palo Alto was tapped by the Department of Veterans Affairs to protect the department’s various assets with its cybersecurity strategies.
