Cisco’s Chief Legal Officer shares her perspective on the power of pro bono work.

Cisco’s purpose is to power a more inclusive future for all.

This is not just abstract sentiment; our purpose is ing… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

Cisco’s Chief Legal Officer shares her perspective on the power of pro bono work.

Cisco’s purpose is to power a more inclusive future for all.

This is not just abstract sentiment; our purpose is ingrained in everything we do. It guides the design of our technology, the culture we cultivate with our teams, and our efforts in the communities where we live and work. For three years running, Cisco has maintained more than 80 percent employee participation in community impact activities. When four out of every five Cisco employees, representing 95 countries, are finding opportunities to give back in ways that are meaningful to them, it’s clear we have a purpose-driven culture—one in which acts both large and small add up to create incredible outcomes.

Cisco’s pro bono work

Dev and the Cisco Legal team based in the Seattle/Portland area joined The Seattle Clemency Project (SCP) and Perkins Coie for a Pro Bono Clinic earlier this year.

Within Cisco Legal, we are passionate about living this purpose through pro bono. As legal and compliance professionals, we have a profound opportunity and responsibility to lean into our unique strengths and areas of expertise to increase access to justice.

Our pro bono program is based on two core tenets. First, pro bono is not one size fits all. Just as we encourage individuals across Cisco to give back in alignment with their personal passions and interests, Cisco Legal colleagues can pick and choose how they want to shape their pro bono experience. Our people perform traditional pro bono work, partnering with law firms and nonprofits to address a variety of issues, including immigration, contracting, and expungement. They provide operational support for nonprofits focused on access to justice, creating greater impact for communities in need. And they use our proprietary Cisco technologies to put justice within reach of those who often lack the resources or ability of the more privileged.

Second, pro bono is for everyone. More than half of our Cisco Legal team in the United States, across all of our diverse disciplines and professions, participated in Pro Bono in our last fiscal year. We’ve also made great strides in participation across our global teams.  When you open pro bono opportunities across the organization, you’re not only making a meaningful impact in the community at large, but you’re building connections and strengthening your own internal community.

Introducing the Cisco Pro Bono report

In our inaugural Cisco Pro Bono report, I’m pleased to share just some of the ways in which our employees– working hand in hand with law firms, other in-house law departments, and nonprofits – have helped increase access to justice. You’ll read about Cisco Legal team members who devote their free time to advocating for children and refugees; who help restore individuals’ ability to get places they need to go; who make the legal system accessible to people in trying circumstances; and who use data to level the playing field for those who lack equal access to justice.

It’s a privilege to share their stories.  

  Cisco’s purpose is to power a more inclusive future for all. For Cisco Legal, this means leveraging their skills and expertise to increase access to justice. See just some of the amazing ways we’ve made an impact in the new Cisco Legal pro bono report.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein

You don’t have to be a genius to know that getting and staying certified is in your best career interes… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein

You don’t have to be a genius to know that getting and staying certified is in your best career interest. In my last blog, I talked about how Cisco Learning Partners resemble travel agents who can help you better plan your Cisco certification journey. Now, let’s take a look at how Learning Partners can help you keep moving, stay balanced, and get the most out of your certification plans.

The value Cisco places in our Learning Partners and in certification is evident in our requirement that Partners who want to reach Cisco Gold Partner status must have CCIEs on staff. With that in mind, it’s easy to see that certification can only move your career plans forward. And moving forward with a Learning Partner is the best way to learn, certify, and recertify. Here’s how.

Cisco U. offers a smorgasbord of Learning Paths

Before you can certify, you probably will want to take some prerequisite or refresher training. By now, you’ve probably heard about Cisco U. This new digital learning experience is built around the learner, offering specialized and structured learning paths to guide you to the most appropriate route that will help you reach your career goals. And, of course, your Learning Partner can help steer you in the right direction here, too.

Cisco U. is like the banquet of learning options on your learning and certification journey. You can choose from a robust menu of learning paths, such as cloud, networking, security, and much more. But you aren’t driving blind in your selection. Cisco U.’s quick-start, pre-skill assessments, modular learning, advanced search, and a focus on goal-setting are designed to work for everyone’s unique journey. With personalized recommendations and feedback, plus learning in the moment of need, Cisco U. can guide you to the right role or solution, helping you grow your skills.

Learning Partners can help guide your Cisco U. training to align with your career goals. Not only that, they can also augment your Cisco U. training paths with in-person training and finally work with your certification goals to ensure success for your Cisco technical career trajectory.

Moving through the certification process

After you traverse your Cisco U. learning experience, you can look to your Learning Partner to show you the best way to follow your personal certification steps, some of which include review, study and train, connect, practice, and exam review.

Review: Prepare to take your exam by familiarizing yourself with the topics the exam will cover, as well as take an exam tutorial if you’re going for an Associate- or Professional-level certification.
Study and train: Once you know which topics will be on your exam, your Learning Partner can help you choose a study or training option that works for you. (Hint: Here’s where following those Cisco U. Learning Paths will have come in handy.)
Connect: You don’t have to study alone when you join the appropriate Certification Community on the Cisco Learning Network and work alongside others who are studying the same material.
Practice: You can even practice through Cisco labs, simulation tools, and sandboxes to reach your certification goals. Some examples include:
Packet Tracer
Cisco Learning Labs
Cisco Modeling Labs
Cisco CCIE Lab Builder
DevNet Sandboxes

Exam review: Take a practice exam to test your readiness and to avoid surprises during the real thing.

If you’re already certified and want to recertify, you can keep your certification current and your skills sharp by participating in the Cisco Continuing Education program.

What’s more, Cisco U. offers you the chance to earn Continuing Education (CE) credits from quite a few Learning Paths in Cisco U. All Access as well as Cisco U. Essentials and even Cisco U. Free. You can earn CE credits on any eligible Learning Paths you finished after Cisco U. General Availability. You’ll need to score at least 80% on each post-assessment in your selected Learning Path to earn CE credits. And you can track your progress in the progress bar at the top of each Learning Path. All in all, Learning Partners and Cisco certification make a great pair to help you form solid strategies in upskilling for the tech career of your dreams. So start packing; it’s time to get moving and start this journey!

Join the Cisco Learning Network today for free.

Follow Cisco Learning & Certifications

Twitter  LinkedIn 

As businesses aim to improve the customer experience and also run more smoothly, they’re turning to software solutions that supercharge their digital transformation. But here’s the kicker: According… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

As businesses aim to improve the customer experience and also run more smoothly, they’re turning to software solutions that supercharge their digital transformation. But here’s the kicker: According to the Flexera 2023 State of ITAM Report, a whopping 32 percent of SaaS spending goes down the drain in a typical IT environment. For many of our clients, the issue boils down to the lack of a clear view of how their assets are being used. And guess what? That lack of visibility means they’re missing out on the full tech goodness they could be enjoying.

Maximize the value and visibility of your technology investments with Cisco and NTT

In the quest to help customers get the most bang for their tech buck, NTT Software-Defined Infrastructure (SDI) Services provides enhanced visibility into an entire technology estate. With SDI Services, you can see everything—from how many licenses you have and what types they are to how they’re used and whether they’re active. Plus, NTT’s got your back with proactive tips such as when support is running out and security advisories. With NTT SDI Services, you have a tech-savvy friend in your corner.  Hear more in this excerpt from NTT’s Danny Marzka talk with Cisco’s Scott Schell in the Cisco CX podcast, Episode 24: Delivering ROI through visibility, flexibility and adaptability with NTT.

Danny Marzka, VP, Technology Solutions, NTT (left) and Scott Schell, Leader, Partner Success, Cisco (right)

NTT’s Danny Marzka talks with Cisco’s Scott Schell about challenges and complexities clients are facing

Empowered by Cisco Success Tracks to deliver business outcomes

NTT SDI Services makes it super easy and quick to reach your business objectives. How? They connect you to the right expertise, insights, learning, and support at the right time through a one-stop unified digital experience delivered by the Cisco CX Cloud.

NTT’s Danny Marzka talks with Cisco’s Scott Schell about how SDI Services solve for business objectives

NTT SDI Services is powered by Cisco Success Tracks and utilizes dozens of Cisco APIs to consolidate data from multiple sources into a single service portal. With this user-friendly portal, you can manage technology life cycles, set policies, stay compliant, get help when things go wonky—and focus on those sweet business outcomes. With this level of insight, you’ll be sprinting toward your tech goals in no time!

NTT’s Danny Marzka talks with Cisco’s Scott Schell about the value of service for customers

Delivering US$1.7 million in annual savings by consolidating 236 contracts

Let me tell you a customer story. A large financial services company operated with 236 separate contacts for a range of Cisco technologies. These contracts had been executed independently by 20 different business units operating across 18 countries, each using its own budget.

But NTT came in, did some serious digging, and realized something huge. By bringing all these contracts under a single Cisco Enterprise Agreement, NTT could save the company a cool US$1.7 million every year. And that’s not all—the headaches of managing multiple licenses with random end dates would disappear. It’s like NTT tidied up the whole space and made sure everything was running super smoothly.

NTT’s Danny Marzka talks with Cisco’s Scott Schell about making the unknown visible: customer reactions 

Taking services to the next level

Modern organizations require access to expertise, visibility, and insights to accelerate business success, streamline IT operations, and deliver value to evolving infrastructures. And that’s exactly what happens when Cisco and NTT join forces to support you—they make your tech happen, delivering tangible results and impact.

Together, Cisco and NTT help you deploy your digital technology and realize the value of your investment. If that sounds good to you, get started by signing up for an SDI License Management Assessment.

To hear the rest of the conversation on NTT’s SDI Services, tune in to the podcast episode:

Delivering ROI through visibility, flexibility and adaptability with NTT

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

Cisco Partners Facebook    Cisco Partners LinkedIn

  As businesses aim to improve the customer experience and also run more smoothly, they're turning to software solutions that supercharge their digital transformation. But here's the kicker: According to the Flexera 2023 State of ITAM Report, a whopping 32 percent of SaaS spending goes down the drain in a typical IT environment.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

For more than twenty years, Deloitte and Cisco have been dedicated to creating meaningful results for our mutual clients in the ever-evolving digital landscape. By combining Cisco’s market presence… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

For more than twenty years, Deloitte and Cisco have been dedicated to creating meaningful results for our mutual clients in the ever-evolving digital landscape. By combining Cisco’s market presence with Deloitte’s expertise, we deliver scalable, adaptable solutions tailored to support unique digital transformation objectives. Our work together merges Cisco’s leadership in IT infrastructure, security, and related sectors with Deloitte’s expertise in digital transformation, analytics, and cloud services.

Our clients access Deloitte’s customized solutions across its consulting, advisory, and tax divisions, leveraging profound industry insights to achieve their business goals. We identify the optimal blend of products and services that integrate seamlessly with their environments, driving digital transformation in areas such as full-stack observability (FSO), connected factories, the future of work, sustainability, and security.

Improving application performance with Full-Stack Observability (FSO)

Deloitte and Cisco collaborate to offer FSO to SAP and AWS clients. By integrating Cisco AppDynamics (AppD) with other monitoring tools, we enhance application performance and drive better business outcomes. AppD addresses SAP visibility and performance concerns at the advanced business application programming (ABAP) code level to provide essential visibility data.

Our efforts offer several benefits to our clients, including:

Real-time discovery and visualization of all SAP components and their dependencies, helping to ensure a comprehensive view during SAP cloud migrations
Reduction of inter-team conflicts by providing a unified source of truth for application performance that bridges the gap between development, operations, and SAP Basis teams
Code-level visibility into SAP ABAP and connected non-SAP applications, expediting root cause analysis and performance issue identification
Establishing baseline health and performance metrics for applications before cloud migration, simplifying issue detection at every migration stage and validating success by comparing pre- and post-migration metrics

Enabling Industrial Smart Operations

In the age of Industry 4.0, leading organizations are transitioning from traditional to digital supply network operations. Traditional linear supply chains lack agility and efficiency, inhibiting broader revenue streams and profit growth. The Digital Supply Network is a dynamic system that incorporates ecosystem partners and leverages digital technologies such as predictive algorithms and real-time IoT sensor data.

Cisco supports secure data collection with sensors, multiaccess wireless, and a cybersecurity platform. Deloitte provides industry expertise and helps transform supply chains through strategy, implementation, cloud operations, and AI solutions.

The outcome? Industrial Smart Operations, delivered by Deloitte and Cisco.

Driving a sustainable future of work

Deloitte and Cisco collaborate to create the contemporary employee experience while reducing the global carbon footprint of offices and factories.

This transformation is influenced by four important trends:

Expansion of a remote hybrid workforce
Reevaluation of real estate requirements and evolving workplace dynamics
Increasing integration of artificial intelligence and telemetry in workplaces
Organizational imperative to embrace a broad range of energy efficiency measures in support of net-zero carbon emissions objectives

Fueled by rapid connectivity, innovative talent models, and cognitive technologies, Deloitte and Cisco are actively shaping the modern employee experience while simultaneously driving environmental sustainability in offices and factories worldwide.

Enhancing security postures

Together, we help our mutual clients confidently transform their cyber and strategic risk mitigation programs and reduce overall risk exposure. Deloitte also works with Cisco to integrate the Cisco Security Portfolio into the Deloitte Zero Trust PRISM Financial Risk asset. This zero-trust cybersecurity posture makes it possible to create more robust and resilient security, simplify security management, improve the end-user experience, and allow customers to incorporate cyber risk elements into their overall risk exposure.

Making an impact that matters

Cisco’s cutting-edge cybersecurity technology, industrial IoT, network transformation, collaboration and observability solutions, and SD-WAN, combined with Deloitte’s distinguished professional services, provide significant value to customers around the world.

Learn more about the Cisco and Deloitte partnership!

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!

Cisco Partners Facebook    Cisco Partners LinkedIn

  For more than twenty years, Deloitte and Cisco have been dedicated to creating meaningful results for our mutual clients in the ever-evolving digital landscape. By combining Cisco's market presence with Deloitte's expertise, we deliver scalable, adaptable solutions tailored to support unique digital transformation objectives.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

Phishing is a problem that affects everyone, from the untrained to the highly skilled. It’s a problem that happens everywhere, from the office to the home. It comes through email, text, phone calls, e… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

Phishing is a problem that affects everyone, from the untrained to the highly skilled. It’s a problem that happens everywhere, from the office to the home. It comes through email, text, phone calls, etc.

The location or means of delivery doesn’t matter—these criminals are going to target you where you are. If the location is one that you’re less likely to suspect, that’s all the better for them. The longer they can mask the scam—revealing only minor oddities that can easily be dismissed—the better chance of success in compromising your credentials.

This came to mind when a phishing email recently managed to evade my spam filters. The subject matter just happened to align with something I’d been working on that day, and I saw the email on my phone when I was out in public. Let’s talk about how this played out.

Our story begins

Lately I’ve been using a lot of Amazon services. I work with AWS inside and outside of work, and like a lot of folks, I’m a Prime member with a handful of subscriptions for various household goods.

An email popped up on the lock screen of my phone the other day. It happened to be a day when I had been looking at my AWS Billing configuration, but by this point I was outside the house dealing with something unrelated.

Most phishing emails are easy enough to spot, with strange grammar, clearly fake email addresses, and far too desperate requests for action. But occasionally they require a second glance, as was the case here. Opening the email and having a cursory look got me thinking something might have gone wrong in my AWS account. Determining if that was the case isn’t always easy on a mobile device, so I decided to review the email on my laptop when I got home.

The email appeared to come from the Amazon billing department. When I was able to sit down and have a closer look, I realized that it was talking about Prime membership and not AWS. As anyone who manages AWS accounts will understand, this alleviated my largest concerns.

The email claims that my Prime membership had been suspended because my credit card was no longer valid. The email offers instructions on how to update these details to avoid interruption.

Just to be sure, I went directly to Amazon’s website, rather than clicking on any email links, to double check. In less than a minute I knew there were no billing issues in my accounts.

This was clearly a phishing attempt, but one which the bad actors took a little more care to make look legitimate.

So, what happens if I click the link?

Go on, click it

This is the point where, if you’re inclined to follow along, we do not recommend clicking phishing links outside of a sandboxed environment. We’re doing so using Cisco Secure Malware Analytics, which can safely analyze suspicious links for malicious activity within its virtual environment.

The phishing link takes us to a site that provides a very similar login experience to a real Amazon page. After entering account credentials—email, phone number, password—the site presents a page that claims that there have been changes to the account that require further verification. The site asks you to validate billing and credit card details, alongside less commonly requested details such as your mother’s maiden name and social security number.

If you provide the information that is requested, you will eventually arrive at a page that says that your account has been recovered and asks you to log in again. It then redirects to the official Amazon landing page.

Behind the curtain

On the surface this may seem fairly ordinary, even for a phishing attempt. However, there’s more going on behind the scenes.

When the link is clicked the browser is sent through a series of redirects before arriving at the fake login page. For the most part, the domains it hops across are innocuous, except the last one hit before the landing page.

Cisco Umbrella flags this domain as a medium risk, while Talos has identified the URL as having a malicious disposition.

In this case the flagged site doesn’t appear to do anything other than redirect the browser to the “login” page of the phishing site. However, immediately after loading this page, it contacts two more domains flagged by Umbrella.

These sites are both classified as a medium risk and reside on the same IP address.

Towards the end of the process of entering data, there are two more domains that are contacted that are classified as a medium risk by Umbrella.

Finally, a domain is contacted that appears to download a Google Chrome extension. It’s hard to say what this extension is intended for, as Chrome blocks the execution of it by default.

All told, a variety of personal and credential data that the phishing site asks you to input is likely stored by the bad actors for further attacks. And the sheer number of suspicious sites contacted behind the scenes is more than enough to arouse suspicion.

A foreshadowing of events

While this phishing attempt avoided many of the telltale signs, there are still a few indicators that can help identify such phishing campaigns.

For starters, while the initial email address looks like a valid email from Amazon, if you look carefully at the letters in “amazon.com” you’ll see there are small accent marks on or between some of the letters. These oddities could easily be dismissed as flecks of dust on a phone, especially after pulling it from your pocket or bag.

These are actually non-standard characters hidden between each letter of the domain. Depending on the email client, these characters may not fully render, as is the case above. However, the characters can appear when using a different device and/or email client.

When opening the email on my laptop, it also became clear that this isn’t the sending email address, but rather the name assigned to it. The actual email address contains random characters and is not from Amazon.

Another indication that the email was a phishing attempt was the use of an email address for the recipient’s name. This is a common tactic used in phishing attempts. So much so that Secure Malware Analytics has a Behavioral Indicator dedicated to it.

Gathering molehills into a mountain

Overall, this phishing attempt did well to cover its tracks, since it lacked several telltale signs that often give them away. In many ways the experience was in line with what you might expect when needing to reset or confirm your credentials.

Even the indicators uncovered during analysis could individually be dismissed as anomalies often present in daily network traffic. There were domains classified as a medium risk (but not high), a suspicious Chrome extension that doesn’t appear to load, as well as a handful of other medium risk warnings in the resulting Malware Analytics report.

Defend from multiple angles

Any of these things could be dismissed individually but combine them and a potentially malicious attack appears.

Cisco Secure Malware Analytics is a great tool for putting the pieces together. But to go a step further and prevent attacks like these requires a suite of applications that work together to identify the disparate parts of the attack.

Phishing Defense in Cisco Secure Email can identify identity deception–based attacks such as this by leveraging local identity and relationship modeling, alongside behavioral analytics to spot them.

Cisco Umbrella can provide security at the DNS layer, blocking requests to malicious sites before a connection is even established and stopping attacks before they reach your network or endpoints.

And in the event that credentials are stolen in a phishing attack, you can ensure that they are rendered inert with a multi-factor authentication (MFA) solution such as Cisco Duo. Duo enables organizations to verify users’ identities before ever granting access.

So, while phishing attacks such as this one can affect anyone, it doesn’t mean that they will wreak havoc. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to identify the red flags, bring them together from different sources, and prevent attacks.

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!

Cisco Secure Social Channels

InstagramFacebookTwitterLinkedIn

  We all know to look out for phishing emails, but sometimes these scams can catch us off guard. Learn to identify minute details that, when brought together, shine light on a larger attack.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

Over the past year, we’ve seen powerful examples of how cybersecurity is at the forefront of national security and business operations. In the ongoing war in Ukraine, cyberattacks have grown more s… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

Over the past year, we’ve seen powerful examples of how cybersecurity is at the forefront of national security and business operations. In the ongoing war in Ukraine, cyberattacks have grown more sophisticated, and responding to them has been elevated to sit alongside other crucial elements of warfare and national power. And in recent weeks, cyberattacks on two of Las Vegas’ largest casinos have shown that even with preparation, vulnerability exists, exposing organizations to both financial and reputational damage.

The Ongoing Need for Cybersecurity Awareness

Cybersecurity Awareness Month draws our attention to critical issues that companies and countries around the world are facing—an evolving threat landscape, the breakdown of privacy, and the gap between the cybersecurity workforce we have and the one we need. But in these challenges, there are also tremendous opportunities. With increased awareness—and strategic action—we can secure critical systems for governments and businesses globally, build a more diverse, inclusive workforce, and upskill or reskill people in a variety of roles for the future.

Organizations of all kinds face an increasing number of digital risks, from ransomware to insider threats, and cyberattacks have the potential to disrupt—or worse, incapacitate—critical systems and services everywhere. Increasingly, cyberattacks are focused on organizations such as schools and hospitals, as well as payment services and power grids. And while many entities are aware of the security threats and risks, we don’t have workers with the skills we need to respond. In short, we need 3.4 million more cybersecurity experts to support today’s global economy.

Closing the Cybersecurity Skills Gap

At Cisco, we’re helping to bridge the cybersecurity skills gap through Cisco Networking Academy. Approaching its 26th year, it is one of the longest-standing IT skills-to-jobs programs worldwide. Since its inception, we’ve trained over 17.5 million global learners, and we’re looking ahead to the future. Last fall, we announced a new goal—to offer digital and cybersecurity skills training to 25 million more global learners over the next 10 years, including 10 million in the EMEA region.

We’ve taken ambitious steps to forge key partnerships to drive access—offering NetAcad programs through high schools and community and technical colleges. We’re also introducing new courses that respond to the needs of the landscape, like our Ethical Hacker course, which tackles offensive security and prepares learners for in-demand roles.

And because we know that technology continues to drive rapid change in the economic landscape, many already in the workforce need access to re-skilling and upskilling opportunities. That’s we we’re also partnering with global HR services company Randstad and IT staffing leader Experis to offer new skills to hundreds of thousands of working people.

By offering skills training to more people globally, we have a powerful opportunity to build a more inclusive economy while we address the threats in the landscape. As more countries and communities everywhere digitize, and the need for those with cybersecurity skills increases, we have a chance to reach those who are often most impacted by economic inequality, including women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities.

Building a Culture around Cybersecurity Awareness

In all workplaces, the need for cybersecurity awareness and action increasingly extends to every role. Those of us in the C-Suite influence how organizational cybersecurity strategies play out. CxO roles make crucial decisions around budget and staffing, as well as developing a culture that prioritizes cybersecurity. IT professionals are at the heart of our intricate cybersecurity measures, with a deep understanding of network security, secure-by-design processes for various products, and incident response procedures. And every team—from human resources to finance to sales—has a vital role to play in keeping our organizations secure.

In our jobs, our personal lives, and in the global economy, cybersecurity awareness and action are imperatives. And while we still have a long way to go to close the cybersecurity skills gap, at Cisco we are empowering individuals to develop the skills needed for the workforce of the future. Our experience tells us that bridging the cyber skills gap will not only strengthen our businesses, governments, and organizations, it will also open opportunities to build a more diverse and inclusive global economy, for all.

  Every day, we see powerful examples of how cybersecurity needs to be at the forefront of national security and business operations. Our goal is to strengthen our businesses, governments, and organizations by bridging the cyber skills gap — thereby creating opportunities that lead to a more diverse and inclusive global economy, for all.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

In today’s digital landscape, where the average user works remotes at least part time and uses a variety of cloud-delivered SaaS and private applications, old perimeter-based security paradigms are… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

In today’s digital landscape, where the average user works remotes at least part time and uses a variety of cloud-delivered SaaS and private applications, old perimeter-based security paradigms are no longer sufficient. To address these realities, we created Cisco Secure Access, a powerful new security service edge (SSE) solution, which connects and protects users when they are accessing the Internet, public apps, and private apps. Recently, IDC released a report analyzing the market trends driving SSE adoption and how Secure Access can address them.

What is driving SSE adoption?

The top two challenges facing businesses who are struggling to adapt to today’s hybrid workplace are network performance and security risk for their remote employees. According to IDC, 41% of businesses cited “improved network bandwidth and security for both remote and in-office workers” as a top investment for the upcoming year. This statistic highlights the growing need for robust security solutions that can cater to both remote and on-site employees.

To solve these problems, more and more organizations are adopting SSE. Part of the secure access services edge (SASE) architecture, SSE brings together a variety of security technologies – including zero trust network access (ZTNA), secure web gateways (SWG), cloud access security brokers (CASB), and firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) – as a single cloud-delivered solution that protects remote workers regardless of where they are located or what kind of resource they are accessing.

In addition to protecting remote workers, SSE simplifies security operations by centralizing policy management for numerous technologies that were previously provided as bespoke point solutions. IDC’s U.S. Enterprise Communications Survey predicts that 40% of enterprises will increase spending on SSE in the next two years. This signifies the rising interest in SSE as a consolidated approach to address the complexities of modern cybersecurity.

How Cisco Secure Access can help

Cisco Secure Access consolidates twelve security technologies into one unified, cloud-delivered platform that facilitates secure access to the Internet, SaaS apps, and private apps, regardless of where the user is located.

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is a key component of an SSE solution, providing a secure framework for remote access. Cisco Secure Access provides superior capabilities over last-gen ZTNA solutions by making use of modern protocols such as MASQUE and QUIC. These technologies make Secure Access ZTA more performant and easier to configure than traditional ZTNA technologies.

In addition to ZTNA, Secure Access also makes use of VPN-as-a-Service (VPNaaS), enabling organizations to provide secure and easy-to-use remote access to all of their private applications. Some private applications are not suitable for ZTNA, such as multi-threaded, legacy, and non-web applications, and thus still require a VPN. When a user connects to a private app, Secure Access automatically determines whether to facilitate the connection with ZTNA or VPNaaS and does so in a seamless manner that is invisible to the end user. Together, ZTNA and VPNaaS allows organizations to adopt a zero trust architecture for remote access in a simple and easy-to-manage fashion.

The other critical component of Secure Access is secure internet access, which combines technologies such as data loss prevention, DNS security, SWG, CASB, and more to protect users when they connect to the Internet. Today, Cisco handles more than 600 billion web requests per day for more than 70 thousand cloud security customers, ensuring end users are protected from the millions of instances of malware, phishing, cryptomining, and other attacks that we detect every day.

Conclusion

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, businesses must adapt their security strategies to meet the challenges of remote work, cloud applications, and an ever-expanding threat landscape. Cisco Secure Access offers a transformative solution, providing a converged, cloud-native approach to enhance security and performance.

Cisco Secure Access enables organizations to empower their users, simplify operations, and provide greater protection across their distributed environment. Read the full report from IDC to learn more about the key requirements for SSE and how Cisco can help.

We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Secure on social!

Cisco Secure Social Channels

InstagramFacebookTwitterLinkedIn

  Today's hybrid workplaces create network performance and security risks for employees. Learn how SSE and Cisco Secure Access are empowering businesses to address these challenges.  Read More Cisco Blogs 

Protecting industrial operations from cyberthreats should always be top of mind. However, with operations networks being often very complex and cyber threats growing increasingly more sophisticated,… Read more on Cisco Blogs

​

Protecting industrial operations from cyberthreats should always be top of mind. However, with operations networks being often very complex and cyber threats growing increasingly more sophisticated, it can be difficult to know where to start. Kam Chumley-Soltani recently held a webinar outlining best practices to protect your industrial environment from cyber threats. Kam is a Technical Solutions Architect in Cisco’s industrial IoT group, working with customers every day to help them drive their OT security projects. Sign up to watch the replay:  Protecting industrial networks from cyber threats: Where do I start?

In the webinar, Kam recommends a stepped approach towards a mature ICS/OT security strategy, implementing the following best practices:

1. See everything on your industrial network

You can’t secure what you don’t know about. You need full visibility into your industrial network and OT security posture, so you have the information you need to reduce the attack surface, segment the industrial network, and enforce cybersecurity policies. Cisco Cyber Vision gives you real-time, detailed visibility into your industrial assets, their communication patterns, and application flows. It embeds visibility capabilities into industrial network equipment, so there’s no need for dedicated security appliances or to build out-of-band SPAN collection networks.

2. Segment the network into smaller trust zones

Network segmentation is key to securing your network and protecting critical industrial processes. It’s also a requirement of the ISA/IEC62443 security standards. Using dedicated security appliances for zone segmentation requires you to deploy additional hardware, create and maintain firewall rules, or even change network wiring and IP addresses. You can avoid this extra cost and complexity by extending software-based network segmentation policies to industrial control networks. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) works with network switches, routers, and wireless access points to restrict communications as per the defined zones. And it uses groups defined in Cyber Vision to allow/deny communications for each asset and drives collaboration between IT and OT teams.

Join us for a webinar on October 31 for more details on how to comply with the ISA/IEC62443 security standards.

3. Secure remote access to OT assets

Remote access is key for operations teams, vendors, and contractors to configure, maintain, and troubleshoot OT assets without time-consuming and costly visits. However, many existing remote access solutions create security backdoors or come with many tradeoffs Cisco Secure Equipment Access (SEA) is solving the challenges of deploying secure remote access to operational assets at scale and brings all the benefits of a zero trust network access (ZTNA) solution to industrial operations. There is no dedicated hardware to install and manage and no complex firewall rules to configure and maintain.

If you want to learn more, join us for a session on ZTNA on October 25 for IIoT World Cybersecurity Day. 

For more details on how to get started with your industrial security journey, watch Kam’s webinar replay or come to the SecurityWeek ICS Cybersecurity Conference in Atlanta next week, where Anastasia Mills and Kam Chumley-Soltani will be presenting a breakout session on Wednesday, October 25 at 10:25 am PST.

This is the largest and longest-running event series focused on industrial cybersecurity. The conference attracts ICS stakeholders across a host of industries and a variety of OT, IT, government, vendors, and more. Make sure you stop by the Cisco Booth #18 to discuss further and meet the team.

  Discover how Cisco can help you protect your industrial network from cyber threats with a stepped approach towards a mature industrial control systems/OT security strategy.  Read More Cisco Blogs