Cisco Firewall Named a 2018 Global Market Leader by Frost and Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan has awarded Cisco the 2018 Market Leadership Award in the Global Network Firewall Market. Frost & Sullivan defines firewall market leaders as “those that recognize the varied needs of the market and evolve their firewall platforms to meet those needs – now and into the future.”[i] Cisco sees this leadership position as validation of our commitment to deliver the best next-generation firewall on the market and become our customers’ #1 security partner.

The Frost and Sullivan 2018 Best Practices Research Report explains the various market challenges that organizations face today, how these challenges are influencing firewall purchasing decisions, and why Cisco Next-Generation Firewalls are uniquely positioned to solve these problems.

Cyberattacks are smarter and there’s more of them. The firewall needs to meet the challenge.

Cyberattacks are increasing in number and sophistication, and current firewall users need their firewalls to do more. Frost & Sullivan notes that current firewall users, “want additional firewall capabilities and features to assist them in managing the growing variety and velocity of cyber risks with higher levels of proficiency,”[ii] and that firewall solution vendors can expect increased market demand, “if they can ramp up their product capabilities to meet the rising expectations of their users.”[iii]

That’s why Cisco designed their Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) to do so much more than just access control. The Cisco NGFW prevents breaches by utilizing the broadest and most sophisticated threat intelligence available. Frost & Sullivan notes the strength of Cisco’s Talos team of 250 + full-time threat researchers as an essential tool “to thwart the ever-changing tactics of cyber-adversaries.”[iv]  Cisco Talos collects and analyzes information about existing and developing threats, and then delivers actionable security protections to the Cisco NGFW (and every other Cisco security product) for no added cost. WannaCry? Nyetya? VPNFilter? Cisco Talos stopped these mega-breaches and others before they hit, and Cisco firewall users were automatically protected. See how in this video:

Cisco NGFWs go beyond prevention to also provide superior visibility into your network to detect and stop threats fast. You can’t protect against what you can’t see. That’s why the Cisco NGFW provides visibility into threat activity across users, hosts, and network infrastructure using integrated intrusion prevention capabilities and continuous analysis of file activity. This allows the Cisco NGFW to catch advanced malware that can evade traditional defenses. The Cisco NGFW maps how hosts transfer malicious files across your network to scope an attack, set outbreak controls, and identify and eliminate the source of a threat. See how in this video:

Organizations use too many security tools. It’s complex and hard to manage. Feature consolidation and product integrations can help.

Frost & Sullivan explains that, “organizations have made significant investments in bespoke security products over the years, but are finding these collections too complex to function optimally and lack expected inter-operability.”[v] Unfortunately, this mixed bag of point-products results in more to manage and more operational overhead. These different tools don’t always communicate or share information with one another, and as a result, InfoSec teams must manually correlate information.

As a result, Frost & Sullivan notes that organizations are looking to simplify. They seek fewer tools, feature consolidation, and integration/interoperability between security tools. Frost & Sullivan notes, “as foundational security platforms, firewalls are ideal consolidators of multiple security technologies. In concept, expanding firewall capabilities, within the platform or via seamless integration, would produce technology consolidation and optimization, and management simplification.”[vi]

Not only do Cisco NGFWs provide more capabilities in a single platform as noted above, but Cisco’s wide range of security products are all designed to work together. Frost & Sullivan notes that Cisco’s breadth of capabilities and interoperability are enticing to firewall buyers – “Cisco’s expanding portfolio of security product and services add to customers’ justification for investing in Cisco’s firewall product lines as core security platforms that interoperate with Cisco’s broadening security portfolio.”[vii]

Cisco security tools automatically share and correlate threat intelligence, event data, and policy information. The Cisco NGFW works together with endpoint security (Cisco AMP for Endpoints), identity services (Cisco ISE), and many more Cisco tools. This means InfoSec teams don’t need to spend hours manually correlating information across multiple point-products, and can instead focus on high priority tasks. Frost & Sullivan notes that, “Cisco is positioned to quell the alert overload and fatigue that InfoSec analysts encounter. With visibility across endpoint, network, and cloud, Cisco is also positioned to assist its users in first visualizing alert correlations across Cisco’s security technologies, confirming cause and effect, and then moving into, manual or automatic, mitigation and… remediation.”[viii] When one Cisco security tool sees a threat in one place, Cisco’s entire ecosystem of security tools can collectively and automatically eliminate the threat.

Different organizations need different firewalls. Cisco firewalls can meet the needs of a wide spectrum of customers.

Frost & Sullivan also notes that Cisco firewalls can meet the needs of a broad spectrum of users. They note that Cisco, “is positioned as the only top 4 vendor in the overall market that is also a top 3 vendor in all four business size market segments (small and midsized business, large business, enterprise, and large enterprise) — a true testament to Cisco’s ability to effectively tune its firewall product lines to align with the varied needs of a wide spectrum of customers.”[ix]

Cisco offers a wide range of firewalls and management consoles to meet the needs of customers, from small to medium businesses, large enterprises, service providers, branch offices, as well as internet edge and data center environments. Our 5500-X, 2100, 4100 and 9300 series next-generation firewalls offer varying ranges of throughput and use cases. Customers can choose to deploy and manage their firewall on-premises or in the cloud. Whatever the use case, Cisco can provide the best next-generation firewall for you.

We believe that no other firewall vendors have the strength and breadth of networking and security capabilities that Cisco offers. We’re committed to continuing our momentum and helping our customers grow their businesses by protecting their environments from today’s threats.

To read Frost & Sullivan’s 2018 Best Practices Research Report naming Cisco Firewalls a market leader, click here.

[i] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[ii] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[iii] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[iv] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[v] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[vi] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[vii] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[viii] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.

[ix] Frost and Sullivan, “2018 Best Practices Research Report, Global Network Firewall Market Leadership Award: Cisco.” February 15, 2019.