Acquisition of Cognitive Security Bolsters Cisco’s Cyber Threat Defense Capabilities

In a world where malware and advanced cyber threats are enterprises’ greatest concern, the need for innovation in security is at an all-time high. Mobility and cloud are drastically changing the IT security paradigm, and our attackers are radically increasing the sophistication of their attack methods. Cisco has been listening to our customers’ concerns and we are investing in threat intelligence and defense.

As part of our investment to strengthen the network with more analytics and intelligence to target today’s complex and disruptive threats, Cisco has announced the intent to acquire Cognitive Security, a privately held company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. Cognitive provides security software that is focused on applying artificial intelligence techniques to detect advanced cyber threats.

When Cognitive’s technology is combined with traditional firewalls, network security, content security, and Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems, it provides a complete detection and mitigation solution that enables customers to protect against advanced attacks and zero day attacks in near real-time.

Why is this important? Well, think of this simple use case: An employee’s own personal device is infected outside the perimeter of the enterprise. Once the employee brings that device on to the network, the enterprise’s perimeter defense solution cannot protect against the threat because the device has already been infected. This can cause a full range of negative impacts on the enterprise and the data center. With Cognitive’s technology integrated in to existing security tools, unknown abnormal network behavior is quickly and automatically identified and subjected to further analysis and enforcement.

The Cognitive software will be integrated in to Cisco’s Security Intelligence Operations (SIO), bringing together global security intelligence from the cloud with local intelligence on a customer premise to protect against advanced cyber threats.

The acquisition of Cognitive supports Cisco’s focus and investment in security and is integral to all three key components of our security strategy: 1) Cloud-based threat intelligence and defense; 2) Common policy management and context; and 3) Network enforced policy – where we truly make the Network part of the security paradigm, as opposed to sticking yet another security “box” in the network and expecting it to do all the work for us.

I am delighted to welcome the Cognitive team to the Cisco family and look forward to working with them to ensure that we are delivering always on, integrated security that empowers our customers to realize the benefits of a mobile, cloud enabled business.