Security is a topic that must be discussed at the C-suite level today. It’s no longer a departmental concern, but one that impacts the entire business. As hybrid work environments create larger attack surfaces that sophisticated bad actors look to expose, the conversation becomes even more critical.
Cisco advanced its progress toward protecting the integrity of an organization's entire IT ecosystem with new capabilities – its vision of the Cisco Security Cloud. The end-to-end platform safeguards users, devices and applications across public clouds and private data centers, without public cloud lock-in.
"We are committed to delivering more value for our partners by continuing to drive innovation and making it easier to do business with Cisco,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration at Cisco.
Organizations are implementing MFA to ensure only trusted users and devices gain access to corporate resources. According to Cisco, monthly MFA adoption year-over-year increased 38%. Taking MFA a step further, Cisco introduced Duo Passwordless Authentication, available for all customers.
Passwordless authentication protects single sign-on applications by allowing users to log in without any password through biometrics and security keys. Cisco also added the Duo Mobile app as a new option for passwordless authentication. The app simplifies implementation and lowers TCO for customers.
"Passwordless authentication reduces the risk of phishing attacks and their ability to utilize stolen passwords or as we've seen more recently, MFA fatigue," said Dave Lewis, global advisory CISO at Cisco. "As cyberattacks continue to move closer to end-users, there is a huge opportunity to embrace low-friction authentication methods that ensure only trusted users and devices gain access.”
With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated and targeting end-users, organizations continue to demand high-performance network security without the increased costs, especially as hybrid work becomes the norm. To meet that demand, Cisco introduced the Secure Firewall 3100 Series, purpose-built for hybrid work.
Secure Firewall 3105 expands sizing options for branch offices at a price point accessible to more organizations, empowers hybrid workers with support for more remote users and increases VPN speed and performance by 17 times.
Security Firewall is offered through Cisco Lifecycle Pay, a Cisco fixed-term subscription payment solution, to provide a financial incentive and lower total cost of usage without the burden of ownership. Through this, customers receive a 10% replacement incentive when returning existing firewall hardware and upgrading to Cisco's latest qualifying firewall technology.
Cisco also noticed customers are concerned about data vulnerability. Data needs to be protected, not just because of the risk tied to malicious threat actors, but the unintentional issues caused by inexperienced users. To help with this, Cisco enhanced Umbrella, a foundational component of Cisco+ Secure Connect, Cisco's unified SASE solution.
Enhancements created stronger data loss prevention capabilities, including unified policies and reporting across API-based out-of-band DLP and real-time inline DLP, making management easier for security teams.
The critical nature of security makes it essential for organizations to protect their networks and data. With the enhancements to its secure portfolio, Cisco increases profitability while enabling customers to securely achieve their digital transformation goals.
Edited by
Erik Linask
