Extending Security Everywhere

Just a few months ago at Cisco Live U.S., we announced both our strategy and several new offerings for Security Everywhere Across the Extended Network. We believe that our vision of delivering Security Everywhere – from the cloud to the network to the endpoint – is essential to reduce risk, gain competitive advantage and make security a growth engine for organizations. Today we are extending Security Everywhere with new capabilities and services that deliver greater visibility, context and control from the cloud to the network to the endpoint, for organizations of all sizes.

Extending Security Deeper into the Network and Endpoints

Employees need access to more enterprise resources from more devices than ever and attacker ingenuity and persistence has reached new heights. As a result, organizations are losing sight of who and what is accessing the network – and the threats that may take hold. Controlling and detecting lateral movement of these threats inside a network is a major challenge most organizations face. Cisco is further improving its market leading capabilities to meet this challenge by simplifying the deployment of software based segmentation, leveraging more of the network’s intelligence, and extending flow based visibility for detecting insider and advanced persistent threats beyond the network to one of the most commonly deployed endpoint agents in the world.

Cisco Identity Service Engine (“ISE”) 2.0 provides several new capabilities that extend the visibility and control of the network for security. The new integration with the Cisco Mobility Services Engine (MSE) provides geo-location for access control. For example, it can grant specific access to top secret resources required for confidential conversations in the boardroom, but then change that level of access as soon as participants leave the meeting to prevent ongoing access. A new work center for TrustSEC deployments dramatically simplifies the deployment of software based segmentation across the network along with new expanded support for third party network access devices. ISE is also an amazingly valuable source of contextual information for security systems that can help any system execute its role better. With ISE 2.0, we are further expanding our industry leading partner community to include several new vendors including Check Point, Infoblox, and Invincea while expanding partners ability to take real time action in the network with new adaptive network control capabilities to augment the rapid threat containment integrations with Lancope Stealthwatch and FireSIGHT Management Center.

Cisco AnyConnect, our world-class VPN for secure mobility that is deployed by organizations across the globe, now delivers deep endpoint visibility into application flows, allowing security administrators to extend visibility down to the device and track behavior off and on premise and quickly spot and scope internal threats arising from compromised systems or inappropriate insider behavior.

Extending Security Further with the Cloud

Enterprises of all sizes are adopting the cloud. From productivity to line-of-business to vertical applications, SaaS and public cloud are enabling the Digital Economy. At the same, more than half the employees in the enterprise today are working outside of the network perimeter. To accelerate this transformation, Cisco is extending security further into the cloud with the following new offerings:

Announced at the end of June, the acquisition of OpenDNS extends our Security Everywhere approach by adding cloud-delivered visibility, threat protection and intelligence. Cisco and OpenDNS have moved quickly to provide increased threat protection by integrating OpenDNS with AMP Threat Grid so that as new malware is discovered by AMP ThreatGRID, protection can be extended instantly everywhere a user or device with OpenDNS. Additionally, the OpenDNS team continues to push the innovation envelope with new exciting capabilities for protection, visibility, and management.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) enable organizations to better understand, control, and monitor the usage of sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud applications while maintaining a balanced risk profile and not impending the employee’s productivity. By integrating directly with Cisco’s Cloud Web Security, Cisco’s partners, Elastica and Skyhigh, can further improve and simplify the deployment and rollout of CASB services. The newest version of Cisco Cloud Web Security (CWS) includes capabilities to deliver greater threat protection and comprehensive security with the integration of Cloud Access Security Broker capabilities, a completely redesigned GUI, and availability on the ISR 4K series of routers, for secure direct Internet access from branches using CWS.

Continuing to Extend AMP Everywhere

AMP Threat Grid is now integrated with Cisco network-based appliances including Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services and AMP for Networks providing users with an inline solution for advanced malware analysis and threat intelligence. Building on previous integrations with Cisco web and email secure gateways and AMP for Endpoints, AMP Threat Grid is now integrated across the entire security infrastructure. Through a single user interface, these integrations provide continuous, automated analysis of suspicious files in a matter of minutes, not hours or days, regardless of ingress or egress point. Additionally, AMP for Endpoints has been extended to include support for Linux-based endpoints in datacenters.

Extending Security to Organizations of all Sizes

Costly data breaches have become commonplace for even small and midsize organizations, which often lack the resources necessary to build robust internal security operations or purchase top-tier managed security solutions. The new Cisco Threat Awareness Service enables small and midsize organizations to gain ongoing visibility into potential threats in their networks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Accessed through a web-based portal, the threat intelligence service monitors network activity and indicates potential threats that might require additional attention.

Cisco understands that security is foundational to seizing the emerging business opportunities that the Digital Economy creates. We believe that security strategies must be designed to address the new considerations and requirements of advancements that incorporate cloud, mobile, data and IoE technologies. Security Everywhere delivers capabilities that are pervasive, open, integrated and continuous to drive business value with greater speed, efficiency and agility. To learn more about how Cisco is extending Security Everywhere, watch our launch webcast.