Cisco innovates towards AI security cloud

Cisco is investing in cutting-edge innovations in AI and machine learning that will empower security teams by simplifying operations and increasing efficacy.

Today’s IT environment has dramatically shifted. Cloud adoption is accelerating. Remote and hybrid users are now the majority.

According to a recent study by Cisco, 91 per cent of respondents in Vietnam said their employees used at least two networks for logging into work, and 28 per cent say their employees use more than five networks. Most organisations rely on a complex web of point products that weren’t designed to support today’s highly distributed environment.

Users are forced to navigate inconsistent access experiences and reauthenticate throughout the day—disrupting productivity. With Cisco Secure Access, Cisco’s new SSE solution, decisions about how users connect to applications are handled behind the scenes, so they get to what they want more quickly. The result is users who are more secure with less hassle for both users and IT teams.

“With Cisco Secure Access, we are removing the burden from the user and providing a superior experience with frictionless access to all applications – not just some – to enable secure, hybrid work,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. “Our unmatched visibility of the network gives us an advantage that no other company has – and we truly believe that where security meets the network, Cisco is the best in the world.”

Thuy Thi Le Luong, managing director of Cisco Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia said, “In today’s hyper-distributed world, businesses need a smarter way to manage connectivity while securing themselves against emerging threats.”

“As businesses in Vietnam shift to support work-from-anywhere models, they need an integrated platform that helps them connect users seamlessly and securely to any application and device, across any location. That’s where our innovations like Cisco Secure Access can provide the most value to them,” she said.

Highlights of Cisco Secure Access include:

• Common Access Experience: Delivers a single, easy way to access all applications and resources (not just some) by intelligently and securely steering traffic to private and public destinations without end-user intervention.
• Single, Cloud-Managed Console: Simplifies security operations by converging multiple functions into one easy to use solution that protects all traffic. Instead of managing a broad set of tools, administrators, and analysts can go to one place to see all traffic, set all policy, and analyse security risks. This translates into efficiency gains, cost reductions, and a flexible IT environment.
• Faster Detection and Response: Provides analysis to speed up investigations and is backed by Cisco Talos AI-driven threat intelligence to detect and block more threats.

Cisco is collaborating with top mobile device vendors to create the safest and best user experience, no matter where users work. Cisco collaborated with Apple to incorporate Zero Trust Access capabilities powered by Cisco Secure Access into a native experience on iOS and macOS, making secure access to applications pervasive while making it simpler for IT and more secure for everyone.

As part of the Cisco Security Cloud, it leverages capabilities from the rest of the Cisco security and networking portfolio, including embedded network visibility from Cisco ThousandEyes, and can be easily integrated with solutions from third-party vendors. Cisco Secure Access will be in limited availability starting in July 2023 and will be generally available in October 2023.

Generative AI

Today, most organisations have a patchwork of security products, forcing teams to set and maintain extremely complex security policies as well as track and remediate threats across numerous solutions. Furthermore, delivering on its strategic vision, Cisco is previewing the first generative AI capabilities in the Security Cloud.

This will reduce policy complexity. The Cisco Security Cloud will leverage a generative AI-powered Policy Assistant that enables Security and IT administrators to describe granular security policies and evaluate how to best implement them across different aspects of their security infrastructure. For the first implementation, customers will be able to reason with Cisco’s AI Assistant to evaluate and produce more efficient firewall policies. It will leverage customers’ existing rulesets in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center to drive unmatched efficiency without sacrificing granular control, and will be available later this year.

It will also detect and deal with threats quickly. Cisco’s SOC Assistant will support the Security Operations Center to detect and respond to threats faster. When an incident occurs, the assistant will contextualise events across email, the web, endpoints, and the network to tell the SOC analyst exactly what happened and the impact. Analysts can then interact and reason with the assistant to determine the best remediation approach, leveraging an extensive knowledge base of potential actions. Cisco first shared this concept at RSA Conference 2023. The event summarization feature will be available by the end of calendar 2023, with the remaining capabilities in the first half of calendar 2024.

Network security

The world is hybrid, and users require seamless connected experiences at the office and on the road. The new Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series raises the bar for performance and flexibility with cryptographic acceleration, clustering and modularity.

Running the new 7.4 version of the operating system, Secure Firewall 4200 features: AI and ML-based encrypted threat blocking without decryption; an evolution of Zero Trust Network Access with complete threat inspection and policy for each individual application, and Simplified branch routing that brings security, control, and visibility to traffic from remote offices to applications in hybrid data centres.

Cisco Secure Firewall 4200 Series appliance will be generally available in September 2023 supporting the 7.4 version of the operating system. The 7.4 OS will be generally available for the rest of the Secure Firewall appliance family in December 2023.