Cisco delivers complete protection with new expanded SASE architecture

Cisco's vision is to deliver seamless, secure access to any application, over any network or cloud, and anywhere users work

Additionally, the company reveals enhancements to its cloud-native platform, SecureX to more quickly and effectively manage new and emerging threats.

The global health crisis last year has made working from anywhere the norm. At the same time, this trend increased the complexity of managing networks and security across an expanding attack surface of users, devices, applications, and data. As the hub shifts from the data centre to the user, a SASE architecture has emerged as a top organisational priority to provide seamless connection to applications.

Cisco introduces the ability to purchase all core SASE product components in a single offer with the flexibility to easily transition to a single subscription service in the future, enabling organisations to start using Cisco’s integrated architecture immediately.

The company provides all the building blocks of a SASE architecture, including best-in-class networking, remote access, cloud security, zero trust network access, and observability. Cisco’s vision is to combine these capabilities into a single subscription service, and deliver seamless, secure access to any application, over any network or cloud, anywhere users work.

“As the workforce is increasingly hybrid, traditional network, and security frameworks can no longer keep pace with this new way of doing business. There has never been a more critical time to deliver something radically different, as every customer is unique and needs flexibility when determining how a SASE architecture fits into their environment,” Gee Rittenhouse, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Security Business Group. “When it comes to transformation, there is no one-size-fits-all approach and moving to a SASE framework is no different.”

Some innovative features that unlock new SASE use cases are data loss prevention as Cisco Umbrella data loss prevention enables organisations to discover and block sensitive data being transmitted to unwanted destinations, while preventing data exfiltration and supporting compliance mandates; or remote browser isolation with Cisco Umbrella remote browser isolation, enabling users to safely browse websites while protecting end user devices and corporate networks from browser-based exploits.

Meanwhile, Cisco Umbrella cloud malware detection finds and removes malware from cloud-based file storage applications. As more organisations move business-critical data to cloud-based applications, they need to ensure users can access them, even from unmanaged devices, and that those cloud applications are safe.

Other flagship features are new SD-WAN and cloud security integration. Accordingly, Cisco SD-WAN powered by Viptela and Umbrella, Cisco Meraki MX now integrated with Cisco Umbrella help to speed cloud-native security deployments across distributed locations with simplified Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) tunnel connectivity.

Part of the new SASE offer, ThousandEyes’ internet and cloud intelligence continues to enable organisations’ visibility and actionable insights into every network, from any user to any application, so they can remediate incidents quickly and maintain reliable connectivity and digital experience.

Other feature is passwordless authentication. The duo unveiled infrastructure agnostic, passwordless authentication shall be available for public preview this summer. The vision is to enable zero trust with a frictionless login experience, ensuring that enterprises can seamlessly protect a mix of cloud and on-premises applications without requiring multiple authentication products or leaving critical security gaps.

In addition to simplifying the SASE journey for customers, Cisco is also on a mission to further simplify and protect against emerging threats. Along with this, the company is delivering complete protection from endpoint to the cloud with SecureX platform enhancements that reduce dwell time for security operations teams (SecOps) and automate tasks involved with detecting and remediating threats.

New automated workflows include SolarWinds supply chain attack, phishing investigations and threat investigations using latest intel from Cisco Talos, one of the largest commercial threat intelligence teams in the world.

These enhancements reduce time to detect threats by 95 per cent, and time to remediate by 85 per cent. Building on the 27 already certified Cisco technology integrations in SecureX ranging from email security to threat intel, the open platform also provides turnkey configuration with third-party technologies including Google, ServiceNow, Splunk, and more.