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Before yesterdaySecurity – Cisco Blog

Cisco Hypershield – Our Vision to Combat Unknown Vulnerabilities

By Craig Connors
Cisco Hypershield can help protect organizations agains unknown vulnerabilities by detecting and blocking unknown vulnerabilities in runtime workloads.

Cisco & Splunk: A Complete SOC Platform Purpose-Built for the AI-Driven Future

By AJ Shipley
We're excited about the integration of Cisco XDR and Splunk Enterprise Security, creating a SecOps platform that can grow with customers as needs change.

NIS2 compliance for industrial networks: Are you ready?

By Fabien Maisl

Since the European Union (EU) signed the second version of the Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive in December 2022, there has been a real frenzy all around Europe about it. NIS2 is now… Read more on Cisco Blogs

NIS2 compliance for industrial networks: Are you ready?

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Smart and Frictionless Zero Trust Access for the Workforce

By Ganesh Umapathy

Providing secure access and a frictionless user experience are typically competing initiatives, but they don’t have to be! Read on to learn why.

In our world today, context changes quickly. We work from home, coffee shops and the office. We use multiple devices to do work. And on the flip side, attackers are becoming increasingly savvy, getting around security controls, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), to gain unauthorized access.

To quote Wendy Nather, Cisco’s head of Advisory CISOs, “Trust is neither binary nor permanent.” Therefore, security controls must constantly evaluate for change in trust, but without adding unnecessary friction for end-users.

It’s no surprise that the recently published Cybersecurity Readiness Index, a survey of 6,700 cybersecurity leaders from across the globe, revealed that more progress is needed to protect identity, networks and applications.

To address these challenges and to make zero trust access for the workforce easy and frictionless, Cisco Duo announced the general availability of Risk-Based Authentication and enhancements to our enterprise ready Single Sign-On solution at Cisco Live EMEA 2023 earlier this week.

Risk-Based Authentication

Chart showing how Risk-Based Authentication starts by evaluating the risk signal analysis based off of device trust, location, wi-fi fingerprint, and known attack patterns. Based of off this, it decides what kind of authentication is required - including no authentication, Duo push 2FA, verified Duo push, FIDO2 authenticator - before allowing (or blocking) access to corporate resources.

Risk-Based Authentication fulfills the zero trust philosophy of continuous trust verification by assessing the risk level for each access attempt in a manner that is frictionless to users. A higher level of authentication is required only when there is an increase in assessed risk. Duo dynamically detects risk and automatically steps up authentication with two key policies:

1. Risk-Based Factor Selection

The Risk-Based Factor Selection policy detects and analyzes authentication requests and adaptively enforces the most secure factors. It highlights risk and adapts its understanding of normal user behavior. It does this by looking for known attack patterns and anomalies and then allowing only the more secure authentication methods to gain access.

For example, Duo can detect if an organization or employee is being targeted for a push bombing attack or if the authentication device and access device are in two different countries, and Duo responds by automatically elevating the authentication request to a more secure factor such as phishing resistant FIDO2 security keys or Verified Duo Push.

Chart showing how Risk-Based Authentication, when picking up on known attack patterns, will either request a Verified Duo Push or Block access.

2. Risk-Based Remembered Devices

The Risk-Based Remembered Devices policy establishes a trusted device session (like “remember this computer” check box), automatically without asking the user the check a box, during a successful authentication. Once the session is established, Duo looks for anomalous IP addresses or changes to a device throughout the lifetime of the trusted session and requires re-authentication only if it observes a change from historical baselines.

The policy also incorporates a Wi-Fi Fingerprint provided by Duo Device Health app to ensure that IP address changes reflect actual changes in location and not normal usage scenarios such as a user establishing an organizational VPN (Virtual Private Network) session.

Chart showing how Risk-Based Authentication, when using location and wi-fi fingerprint to determine that risk levels are low, won't require authentication.

Duo uses anonymized Wi-Fi Fingerprint to reliably detect whether the access device is in the same location as it was for previous authentications by comparing the Wi-Fi networks that are “visible” to the access device. Further, Duo preserves user privacy and does not track user location or collect any private information. Wi-Fi Fingerprint only lets Duo know if a user has changed location.

Single Sign-On

A typical organization uses over 250 applications. Single sign-on (SSO) solutions help employees access multiple applications with a single set of credentials and allow administrators to enforce granular policies for application access from a single console. Integrated with MFA or passwordless authentication, SSO serves as a critical access management tool for organizations that want to implement zero trust access to corporate applications.

Chart showing how Duo SSO integrates with SAML 2.0 and OIDC applications

Duo SSO is already popular among Duo’s customers. Now, we are adding two new capabilities that cater to modern enterprises:

1. Support for OpenID Connect (OIDC)

An increasing number of applications use OIDC for authentication. It is a modern authentication protocol that lets application and website developers authenticate users without storing and managing other people’s passwords, which is both difficult and risky. To date, Duo SSO has supported SAML web applications. Supporting OIDC allows us to protect more of the applications that our customers are adopting as we all move towards a mobile-first world and integrate stronger and modern authentication methods.

2. On-Demand Password Resets

Password resets are expensive for organizations. It is estimated that 20-50% of IT helpdesk tickets are for password resets. And according to a report by Ponemon Institute, large enterprises experience an average loss of $5.2 million a year in user productivity due to password resets.

When logging into browser-based applications, Duo SSO already allows users to reset passwords when they have expired in the same login workflow. And we heard from our customers that users want the option to proactively reset passwords. Now, Duo SSO offers the convenience to reset their Active Directly passwords before they expire. This capability further increases user productivity and reduces IT helpdesk tickets.

Screenshot of Duo's self-service password reset prompt

Risk-Based Authentication and enhancements to Duo SSO are available now to all paying customers based on their Duo Edition. If you are not yet a Duo customer, sign up for a free 30-day trial and try out these new capabilities today!


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All in for Security: Cisco Secure at Cisco Live EMEA 2023

By Tom Gillis

Cisco Live is the premier destination for Cisco customers and partners to gain knowledge and build community. Our teams work hard to deliver education and inspiration, ignite creativity, deliver practical know-how, and accelerate the connections that fuel your digital future.

The Cisco Secure team is excited to share our expertise to help power the strategies – and safety – of your organization.

If it’s connected, it’s protected

Executive Q&A Panel at Cisco Live EMEA

In 2023, the threat landscape will evolve to one that sees attacks on every surface, from criminals who are opportunistic, yet laser-focused on their goal. The attacks themselves could be email-borne, directly targeted, socially based, or a mix of all three.

Criminals will target vulnerabilities, operational deficiencies, suppliers, and business partners, as a means of accomplishing their goals. They will use the target’s own environment and take advantage of existing people and technology problems, including alert fatigue and staffing shortages.

To face this reality and address the needs of organizations both large and small, Cisco will continue to focus on education and innovation in the areas of preventing insider threats, providing consistent and informed alerts, enabling actionable intelligence, and delivering solutions to implement a zero-trust security framework.

As the organization that pioneered networking, we are driven to secure every connection, providing end-to-end protection for users and devices across multiple clouds and networks with a seamless experience.

Innovating to enable a more resilient organization

As our vision for the integrated Cisco Security Cloud evolves, we’re continuing to challenge existing models and unify security and networking, with foundational elements that execute on this vision. From verified push – which protects organizations from MFA-focused phishing attacks – to Wi-Fi Fingerprint, and Remembered Devices, the performance enhancements with Enterprise Single Sign-on and Cisco+ Secure Connect, we continue to meet our customers where they are, offering true zero trust, with frictionless experiences for the hybrid workforce.

We’re excited to celebrate the following innovations and updates announced at Cisco Live EMEA:

Risk-Based Authentication

Finding the balance between usability and security is now easier than ever. With Risk-Based Authentication, users have the access they need, secured by real-time contextual signals. Organizations can increase security efficacy by dynamically adjusting authentication ​requirements based on risk levels and by enabling safer end-user behavior. Risk-based authentication now includes wi-fi fingerprint, remembered device, and verified push features, which work together to reduce risk while preserving user experience ​by only requesting additional interaction for suspicious logins or a change in risk.

Single Sign-On

Our Enterprise Ready Single Sign-on expands Duo SSO with three new capabilities to easily connect single sign-on to modern apps and empower end users. By adding major protocol support, improved admin tooling, and SSO on demand password resets, organizations enable easier and more secure access from anywhere.

Cisco+ Secure Connect

Cisco SD-WAN customers can now enjoy all the benefits of a turnkey, single-vendor SASE solution that brings together industry-leading networking with security:​ Cisco+ Secure Connect. This new integration gives Cisco SD-WAN (powered by Viptela) customers fast, secure private application and internet access, enabling them to deliver a secure experience, anywhere work happens.

Application Security

We are also announcing the introduction of industry-first Business Risk Observability, an enhancement of our Full-Stack Observability application security solution. Available through Cisco Secure Application, which is integrated into Cisco AppDynamics, it provides a business risk scoring solution which brings together Kenna Risk Meter score distribution and Business Transactions from Cisco AppDynamics and integrates with Panoptica for API security and Talos for threat intelligence.

Cybersecurity Readiness Index report

The initial findings from our first Cybersecurity Readiness Index reveal that while technology to devices is widely adopted, more progress is needed to protect identity, networks and applications. The report assessed the preparedness of companies around the world to safeguard against cyber threats in the current environment. See our key findings and security readiness trends, with the full report launching in the coming weeks.

As we navigate 2023, we will continue to face uncertainties and challenges. We are fully committed to our customers and partners in the journey to provide security resilience, supporting a frictionless user experience, and solutions threat intelligence that work to continually minimize risk.

 


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Encryption is on the Rise!

By Justin Buchanan

When the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) announced the TLS 1.3 standard in RFC 8446 in August 2018, plenty of tools and utilities were already supporting it (even as early as the year prior, some web browsers had implemented it as their default standard, only having to roll it back due to compatibility issues. Needless to say, the rollout was not perfect).

Toward the end of 2018, EMA conducted a survey of customers regarding their TLS 1.3 implementation and migration plans. In the January 2019 report, EMA concluded:

Some participants’ organizations may find they have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a Plan B to enable TLS 1.3 without losing visibility, introducing unacceptable performance bottlenecks and greatly increasing operational overhead. Whether they feel they have no choice but to enable TLS 1.3 because major web server and browser vendors have already pushed ahead with it or because they need to keep pace with the industry as it embraces the new standard is unclear. What is clear is that security practitioners see the new standard as offering greater privacy and end-to-end data security for their organizations, and that the long wait for its advancement is over.

When EMA asked many of the same questions in an updated survey of 204 technology and business leaders toward the end of 2022, they found that nearly all the conclusions in the 2018/2019 report still hold true today. Here are the three biggest takeaways from this most recent survey:

  • Remote work, regulatory and vendor controls, and improved data security are drivers. With all the attention paid to data security and privacy standards over the past few years, it is little wonder that improved data security and privacy were primary drivers for implementation – and those goals were generally achieved with TLS 1.3. The push for remote working has also increased TLS 1.3 adoption because security teams are looking for better ways for remote workers (76% using) and third-party vendors (64% using) to access sensitive data.
  • Resource and implementation costs are significant. Eighty-seven percent that have implemented TLS 1.3 require some level of infrastructure changes to accommodate the update. As organizations update their network infrastructure and security tools, migration to TLS 1.3 becomes more realistic, but it is a difficult pill to swallow for many organizations to revamp their network topology due to this update. Over time, organizations will adopt TLS 1.3 for no other reason than existing technologies being depreciated – but that continues to be a slow process. There is also a real consideration about the human resources available to implement a project with very little perceived business value (81%), causing workload increases to thinly stretched security staff. Again, this will likely change as the technology changes and improves, but competing business needs will take a higher priority.
  • Visibility and monitoring considerations remain the biggest obstacle to adoption. Even with vendor controls and regulatory requirements, many organizations have delayed implementing TLS 1.3 for the significant upheaval that it would cause with their security and monitoring plans within their environment. Even with improved technologies (since the first announcement of TLS 1.3), organizations still cannot overcome these challenges. Organizations are evaluating the risks and compensating controls when it comes to delaying the implementation, and they continue to evaluate stop-gap solutions that are easier and less intrusive to implement than TLS 1.3 while road-mapping their eventual TLS 1.3 migration.

While regulatory frameworks and vendor controls continue to push the adoption of the TLS 1.3 standard, adoption still comes with a significant price tag – one that many organizations are just not yet ready or able to consume. Technology improvements will increase rates of adoption over time, such as Cisco Secure Firewall’s ability to decrypt and inspect encrypted traffic. More recent and unique technologies, like Cisco’s encrypted visibility engine, allow the firewall to recognize attack patterns in encrypted traffic without decryption. This latter functionality preserves performance and privacy of the encrypted flows without sacrificing the visibility and monitoring that 94% of respondents were concerned about.

Readers wishing to read the full EMA report can do so here and readers wishing to learn more about Cisco Secure Firewall’s encyrpted visibility engine can do so here.


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Nine Top of Mind Issues for CISOs Going Into 2023

By Richard Archdeacon

As the majority of the global Covid fog finally started lifting in 2022, other events – and their associated risks – started to fill the headspace of C-level execs the world over. In my role, I regularly engage with CISOs in all kinds of sectors, representatives at industry bodies, and experts at analyst houses. This gives me an invaluable macroview not only of how the last 12 months have affected organizations and what CISOs are thinking about, but also how the upcoming year is shaping up.

Using this information, last year I wrote a blog summing up the nine top of mind issues I believed will most impact CISOs as we headed into 2022. Many of them still ring true now and will continue to do so, but some new concerns have risen up the agenda. Here are the topics that I think will be top of mind in 2023, and what CISOs can do to prepare.

  1. CISO in the firing line

One aspect that has come to the fore this year is the CISO’s position as ‘guardian of customers’ private data’ in the event of a breach, and their responsibilities over the level of disclosure they later provide. And here, we are not only talking about the legal duty to inform regulators, but the implicit moral duty to inform third parties, customers, etc. From my conversations this year, this whole area is getting CISOs thinking about their own personal liability more.

As a result of this, next year we could see CISOs tightening up the disclosure decision making process, focusing on quicker and greater clarity on breach impact, and even looking to include personal liability cover in cyber insurance contracts. CISOs will also likely be pushing more tabletop exercises with the executive leadership team to ask and answer questions around what is showed, to whom, and by whom.

  1. Increasing demands from insurers

Cyber insurance has become a newsworthy topic over the last 24 months, mainly due to the hardening of the market, as insurance products have become less profitable for underwriters and insurers’ costs have risen. But the topic will continue to be in focus as we move into 2023, with insurers demanding greater attribution – aka the science of identifying the perpetrator of a cybercrime by comparing the evidence gathered from an attack with evidence gathered from earlier attacks that have been attributed to known perpetrators to find similarities.

The need for greater attribution stems from the news that some insurers are announcing that they are not covering nation state attacks, including major marketplace for insurance and reinsurance, Lloyd’s – a topic I covered with colleague and co-author Martin Lee, in this blog earlier in the year.

Greater preparation and crystal-clear clarity of the extent to which attribution has taken place when negotiating contracts will be an essential element for CISOs going forward. For more practical advice on this topic, I also wrote a blog on some of the challenges and opportunities within the cyber liability insurance market back in June which you can read here.

  1. Getting the basics right

Being a CISO has never been more complex. With more sophisticated attacks, scarcity of resources, the challenges of communicating effectively with the board, and more demanding regulatory drivers like the recently approved NIS2 in the EU, which includes a requirement to flag incidents that cause a significant financial implication or operational disruption to the service or to others within 24 hours.

With so much to consider, it is vital that CISOs have a clear understanding of the core elements of what they protect. Questions like ‘where is the data?’, ‘who is accessing it?’, ‘what applications is the organization using?’, ‘where and what is in the cloud?’ will continue to be asked, with an overarching need to make management of the security function more flexible and simpler for the user. This visibility will also inevitably help ease quicker decision making and less of an operational overhead when it comes to regulatory compliance, so the benefits of asking these questions are clear.

  1. How Zero Trust will progress

According to Forrester, the term Zero Trust was born in 2009. Since then, it has been used liberally by different cybersecurity vendors – with various degrees of accuracy. Zero Trust implementations, while being the most secure approach a firm can take, are long journeys that take multiple years for major enterprises to carry out, so it is vital that they start as they mean to go on. But it is clear from the interactions we have had that many CISOs still don’t know where to start, as we touched on in point #3.

However, that can be easier said than done in many cases, as the principles within Zero trust fundamentally turn traditional security methods on their head, from protecting from the outside in (guarding your company’s parameter from external threats) to protecting from in the inside out (guarding individual assets from all threats, both internal and external). This is particularly challenging for large enterprises with a multitude of different silos, stakeholders and business divisions to consider.

The key to success on a zero-trust journey is to set up the right governance mode with the relevant stakeholders and communicate all changes. It is also worth taking the opportunity to update their solutions via a tech refresh which has a multitude of benefits, as explained in our most recent Security Outcomes Study (volume 2).

For more on where to start check out our eBook which explores the five phases to achieving zero trust, and if you have already embarked on the journey, read our recently published Guide to Zero Trust Maturity to help you find quick wins along the way.

  1. Ransomware and how to deal with it

As with last year, ransomware continues to be the main tactical issue and concern facing CISOs. More specifically, the uncertainty around when and how an attack could be launched against the organization is a constant threat.

Increased regulation on the payment of ransomware and declaring payments is predicted, on top of the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA), the Ransom Disclosure Act, but that doesn’t help alleviate ransomware worries, especially as this will again put the CISO in the firing line.

CISOs will continue to keep a focus on the core basics to prevent or limit the impact of an attack, and again have a closer look at how any ransomware payment may or may not be paid and who will authorize payment. For more on how executives can prepare for ransomware attacks, read this blog from Cisco Talos.

  1. From Security Awareness to Culture Change

Traditionally CISOs have talked about the importance of improving security awareness which has resulted in the growth of those test phishing emails we all know and love so much. Joking aside, there is increased discussion now about the limited impact of this approach, including this in depth study from the computer science department of ETH Zurich.

The study, which was the largest both in terms of scale and length at time of publishing, revealed that ‘embedded training during simulated phishing exercises, as commonly deployed in the industry today, does not make employees more resilient to phishing, but instead it can have unexpected side effects that can make employees even more susceptible to phishing’.

For the most effective security awareness, culture is key. This means that everyone should see themselves as part of the security team, like the approach that has been taken when approaching the issue of safety in many high-risk industries. In 2023, CISOs will now be keen to bring about a change to a security culture by making security inclusive, looking to create security champions within the business unit, and finding new methods to communicate the security message.

  1. Resignations, recruitment and retention

Last year, we talked about preparing for the ‘great resignation’ and how to prevent staff leaving as WFH became a norm rather than an exception. In the past year, the conversations I have had have altered to focus on how to ensure recruitment and retention of key staff within the business by ensuring they work in an environment that supports their role.

Overly restrictive security practices, burdensome security with too many friction points, and limitations around what resources and tools can be used may deter the best talent from joining – or indeed staying – with an organization. And CISOs don’t need that extra worry of being the reason behind that kind of ‘brain drain’. So, security will need to focus on supporting the introduction of flexibility and the ease of user experience, such as passwordless or risk-based authentication.

  1. Don’t sleep on the impact of MFA Fatigue

Just when we thought it was safe to go back into the organization with MFA protecting us, along came methods of attack that rely on push-based authentication vulnerabilities including:

  • Push Harassment – Multiple successive push notifications to bother a user into accepting a push for a fraudulent login attempt;
  • Push Fatigue – Constant MFA means users pay less attention to the details of their login, causing a user to accept a push login without thinking.

There has been a lot written about this kind of technique and how it works (including guidance from Duo) due to some recent high-profile cases. So, in the forthcoming year CISOs will look to update their solutions and introduce new ways to authenticate, along with increased communications to users on the topic.

  1. Third party dependency

This issue was highlighted again this year driven by regulations in different sectors such as the UK Telecoms (Security) Act which went live in the UK in November 2022 and the new EU regulation on digital operational resilience for financial services firms (DORA), which the European Parliament voted to adopt, also in November 2022. Both prompt greater focus on compliance, more reporting and understanding the dependency and interaction organizations have with the supply chain and other third parties.

CISOs will focus on obtaining reassurance from third parties as to their posture and will receive a lot of requests from others about where their organization stands, so it is crucial more robust insight into third parties is gained, documented, and communicated.

When writing this blog, and comparing it to last year’s, the 2023 top nine topics fit into three categories. Some themes make a reappearance, seem to repeat themselves such as the need to improve security’s interaction with users and the need to keep up to date with digital change. Others appear as almost incremental changes to current capabilities such as an adjusted approach to MFA to cope with push fatigue. But, perhaps one of the most striking differences to previous years is the new focus on the role of the CISO in the firing line and the personal impact that may have. We will of course continue to monitor all changes over the year and lend our viewpoint to give guidance. We wish you a secure and prosperous new year!


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Rolling Up Our Sleeves: Employee Volunteers Empowered to Give Back

By Mary Kate Schmermund

For these Cisconians, hands-on is the way to go when it comes to giving back. Using Cisco’s Time2Give benefit that provides 10 paid days to volunteer each year, team members rolled up their sleeves to build homes, cuddle and care for animals, distribute food and more. If you also value giving back, check out our open roles. 

Building homes and hope 

Marketing Specialist, Global Events Julie Kramer used Time2Give to build a shed with Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley. Kramer especially appreciated learning about the organization’s purpose in addition to learning how to build.  

John Hindman, an account executive, used Time2Give to spend a week in Nicaragua with SuNica, an organization centered on clean water and fellowship. Hindman cleared out downed trees, picked coffee and built treehouses to allow the organization to host more children from surrounding communities.

In the community Hindman visited, repurposing recycled materials is critical to the economy, and one way that happens is through “mining” the local landfill. Hindman’s team encouraged local employees and led games and activities for local children.

For those considering Time2Give, Hindman says, “Do it. Unplug, find something you’re passionate about, set up your out-of-office, and ignore everything work-related for the time you’re serving.”

Cuddling up with kindness

Animal lover Carrie Cordeiro, a Cisco Secure digital strategist/manager on the Brand Marketing team, volunteers with Hopalong and Muttville as a kitten cuddler and dog walker. Most of her time is spent transporting kittens, puppies, cats and dogs around the Bay Area to vet appointments, adoption centers and foster locations.

The best part for Cordeiro is “getting to interact with so many adorable animals,” she said. As for leadership support around utilizing Time2Give? “I love doing it and my management team absolutely supports it, especially when I share photos.”

Customer Success Manager Kristen Gehrke reminds us that, “You don’t always have to look far to utilize Time2Give.” She sewed a baby blanket for Bluebonnet Trails Community Services. “The best part of the experience was giving back to mothers and their babies, as I am an expecting mother myself,” she said.

Employee volunteers distribute care with consistency

Engineering Manager Blake Ellingham organized food pantry shelves and packed bags for food distributions with HTB Food Bank. “I love getting to do work with my hands that helps others,” he said.

Ellingham recommends scheduling something routine for Time2Give. “Consistency matters! By going in every week for a half day of volunteering, I was able to make great friends with the staff,” he said.

Giving back matters

From empowering youth globally and remotely to volunteering across community hubs, Cisconians deeply value innovative ways to contribute their time and talents.

If you are interested in increasing the impact of your skills and passions at work and beyond, check out our open positions.


 

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ALL IN at Cisco Live 2022 Melbourne: Building Security Resilience for the Modern Enterprise

By Yoshiyuki Hamada

After a three-year hiatus, Cisco Live 2022 Melbourne is back! Personally, it will be a special experience, attending with my team and leaders for the first time as the Asia Pacific Cybersecurity Lead.

I will be speaking on the “Top Priorities for IT and Security Leaders in 2023” on 7 December at the Cisco Secure Insights Live, covering key priorities for security leaders as we enter the new year. Please join me at the Security Experience Hub at the World of Solutions. You can also participate virtually.

Experts’ Insights on Enabling a Strong Security Culture and Resilience 

Today’s businesses require a strong culture of security and resilience that is pervasive throughout the organization to withstand uncertainty and emerge stronger. Hear from our Cisco security leaders on powering resilience across the enterprise in the following presentations:

Dive into 80+ security sessions by experts to uncover best practices to address key challenges, and maximize your technology investments.

Security Experience at the World of Solutions 

Explore the Security Experience Hub and Demo Stand at the World of Solutions Zone for exciting security activities:

  • Cybersecurity Operations Center – features demos on how to optimize security operations and empower your SecOps team with deep visibility and automation to enable them to effectively secure the business.
  • Cisco Secure Insights Live – 30+ bite-sized sharing sessions by industry experts and leaders on trends, innovations and the current threat landscape.
  • Security Demo Stand – end-to-end solution portfolio showcase, including Application Security, Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Network Security, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Cloud Security, Secure Analytics, Secure Email, SecureX, Services and Zero Trust Security.
  • Security Resilience Pod – evaluate and benchmark your security posture , and get recommendations on how to improve existing security programs.

For those joining us online, we have the Cisco Secure Insights Live broadcast on all things security, and Cisco Live broadcast covering keynote presentations by industry leaders.

I’m excited for you to see how we can help you achieve security resilience and look forward to meeting you at Cisco Live 2022 Melbourne. I’m ALL IN, are you?

 


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Employee Volunteers Enrich Communities From the Farm to the Theatre and Beyond

By Mary Kate Schmermund

Cisconians delight in contributing to their communities in a variety of ways including at the local theatre, farm and library. Cisco’s paid Time2Give benefit encourages team members to volunteer at the places where their passions thrive.

How should you decide where to get involved? Customer Success Program Manager Kate Pydyn advises: “Find something that speaks to your passion while giving back. There are so many opportunities that involve being outdoors, crafting, teaching skills you’ve developed, telling stories or providing comfort.”

With ten paid days a year to give, these Cisconians demonstrate that building relationships with people, the arts and the earth can increase fulfillment, connection and community.

Harvesting good will

Urban farming is an issue very close to the heart of Petra Hammerl, a senior enterprise customer success manager who works on Duo Security. Hammerl frequently volunteers at Farm City Detroit, part of Detroit Blight Busters. Using Time2Give, Hammerl has shared the experience by “bringing a crew of awesome co-workers which has been amazing and a lot of fun,” she said.

Petra Hammerl, Kate Pydyn and Emily Gennrich give their time at Farm City Detroit

“It felt great to take action! There are so many problems in the world, and I often feel powerless to make a difference. What I did was small, but with all of the volunteers together, the work that was done makes a real difference in the lives of my neighbors.” – Kate Pydyn

Pydyn and Emily Gennrich, a manager of operations for security customer success at Cisco Secure, joined in on the fun by contributing to multiple facets of gardening from weeding to harvesting food. “It felt great to take action! There are so many problems in the world, and I often feel powerless to make a difference. What I did was small, but with all of the volunteers together, the work that was done makes a real difference in the lives of my neighbors,” Pydyn said.

Community connections at the library

Senior Communications Manager, Brand Strategy & Design at Cisco Secure Chrysta Cherrie spent her Time2Give as a sighted assistant at the VISIONS vendor fair, hosted at the Ann Arbor District Library Downtown. “I was really happy to take some time to volunteer at the VISIONS vendor fair for people who are blind, visually impaired or physically disabled,” Cherrie said.

Learning how to be a sighted assistant was “a reminder that we can do more when we can rely on each other. Taking the time to better understand how someone makes their way through life gives you a chance to build empathy,” Cherrie said. She escorted attendees around the event where exhibitors offered products and services like electronic readers, leader dogs and transportation. There were also talks throughout the day and Cherrie helped attendees navigate between the presentation and vendor areas.

Meeting attendees of the VISIONS vendor fair and experiencing how meaningful the event is also moved Cherrie. The fair “brings out folks throughout southeast Michigan, so there’s a good chance that the person you’re assisting will run into some friends, and getting to see people connect like that can’t help but make you feel good,” Cherrie said.

Lights up on employee volunteers

Jenny Callans, a senior design researcher who works on Duo Security, serves as the chair of the Friends of the Detroit Film Theatre’s Auxiliary, a part of the Detroit Institute of Arts. “We support the mission of the Friends of the Detroit Film Theatre to make great niche films accessible to audiences,” she said. To do that, the organization is responsible for building a community of film fans and overseeing how donations are spent.

Volunteer

For Callans, the most meaningful part of using Time2Give to support the FDFT and the DIA is sharing her love of film with others. Time2Give supports her duties as FDFT chair, and gives her a sense of connection when she’s visiting the DFT to take in a movie. “Sitting in a theatre next to my young adult son, but surrounded by strangers watching a film that is unusual or unexpected but which moves me and challenges me to think is the best part hands-down,” Callans said.

Employee volunteer program multiplies impact

From supporting youth to volunteering at community hubs, Time2Give “is a fantastic opportunity to have a long-lasting, meaningful relationship with your community by volunteering as a board or committee member! Having a long-term presence with an org is amazingly impactful, for you and for the organization,” Callans said.

Time2Give is one of Cherrie’s favorite things about working at Cisco. She says, “Take advantage of the opportunity! Time2Give is a great way to give back to your community and the people and causes that you care about.”

Stay tuned for more posts celebrating the community engagement Time2Give fosters and check out our open roles to join in on giving back.


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Still Using Passwords? Get Started with Phishing-Resistant, Passwordless Authentication Now!

By Jackie Castelli

Going beyond the hype, passwordless authentication is now a reality. Cisco Duo’s passwordless authentication is now generally available across all Duo Editions.

“Cisco Duo simplifies the passwordless journey for organizations that want to implement phishing-resistant authentication and adopt a zero trust security strategy.”
—Jack Poller, Senior Analyst, ESG

We received tremendous participation and feedback during our public preview, and we are now excited to bring this capability to our customers and prospects.

“Over the last few years, we have increased our password complexities and required 2FA wherever possible.  With this approach, employees had more password lock outs, password fatigue, and forgetting their longer passwords due to password rotations.  With Duo Passwordless, we are excited to introduce this feature to our employees to keep our password complexities in place and leverage different Biometric options whether that is using their mobile device, Windows Hello, or a provided FIDO security key. 

The Duo Push for passwordless authentication feature is simple and easy and introduces a more pleasant experience overall.  Using Duo’s device insight and application policies, we are able to leverage and verify the security of the mobile devices before the device is allowed to be used.  To top it off, Duo is connected to our SIEM and our InfoSec team is able to review detailed logs and setup alerts to be able to keep everything secure.”
—Vice President of IT, Banking and Financial Services Customer

As with any new technology, getting to a completely passwordless state will be a journey for many organizations. We see customers typically starting their passwordless journey with web-based applications that support modern authentication. To that effect, Duo’s passwordless authentication is enabled through Duo Single Sign-On (SSO) for federated applications. Customers can choose to integrate their existing SAML Identity provider such as Microsoft (ADFS, Azure), Okta or Ping Identity; or choose to use Duo SSO (Available across all Duo editions).

“Password management is a challenging proposition for many enterprises, especially in light of BYOD and ever increasing sophistication of phishing schemes. Cisco aims to simplify the process with its Duo passwordless authentication that offers out-of-box integrations with popular single sign-on solutions.”
—Will Townsend, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Networking & Security, Moor Insights & Strategy

Duo’s Passwordless Architecture

Duo Passwordless Architecture

Duo offers a flexible choice of passwordless authentication options to meet the needs of businesses and their use cases. This includes:

  1. FIDO2-compliant, phishing-resistant authentication using
    • Platform authenticators – TouchID, FaceID, Windows Hello, Android biometrics
    • Roaming authenticators – security keys (e.g. Yubico, Feitian)
  2. Strong authentication using Duo Mobile authenticator application

No matter which authentication option you choose, it is secure and inherently multi-factor authentication. We are eliminating the need for the weak knowledge factor (something you know – passwords) which are shared during authentication and can be easily compromised. Instead, we are relying on stronger factors, which are the inherence factor (something you are – biometrics) and possession factor (something you have – a registered device). A user completes this authentication in a single gesture without having to remember a complex string of characters. This significantly improves the user experience and mitigates the risk of stolen credentials and man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks.

Phishing resistant passwordless authentication with FIDO2

Passwordless authentication using FIDO2

FIDO2 authentication is regarded as phishing-resistant authentication because it:

  1. Removes passwords or shared secrets from the login workflow. Attackers cannot intercept passwords or use stolen credentials available on the dark web.
  2. Creates a strong binding between the browser session and the device being used. Login is allowed only from the device authenticating to an application.
  3. Ensures that the credential (public/private key) exchange can only happen between the device and the registered service provider. This prevents login to fake or phishing websites.

Using Duo with FIDO2 authenticators enables organizations to enforce phishing-resistant MFA in their environment. It also complies with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance issued earlier this year in a memo titled “Moving the U.S. Government Towards Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles”. The memo specifically requires agencies to use phishing-resistant authentication method.

We understand that getting the IT infrastructure ready to support FIDO2 can be expensive and is typically a long-term project for organizations. In addition, deploying and managing 3rd party security keys creates IT overhead that some organizations are not able to undertake immediately.

Alternatively, using Duo Push for passwordless authentication is an easy, cost effective to get started on a passwordless journey for many organizations, without compromising on security.

Strong passwordless authentication using Duo Mobile

We have incorporated security into the login workflow to bind the browser session and the device being used. So, organizations get the same benefits of eliminating use of stolen credentials and mitigation of phishing attacks. To learn more about passwordless authentication with Duo Push, check out our post: Available Now! Passwordless Authentication Is Just a Tap Away.

 

 

Beyond passwordless: Thinking about Zero Trust Access and continuous verification

passwordless authentication

In addition to going passwordless, many organizations are looking to implement zero trust access in their IT environment. This environment typically is a mix of modern and legacy applications, meaning passwordless cannot be universally adopted. At least not until all applications can support modern authentication.

Additionally, organizations need to support a broad range of use cases to allow access from both managed and unmanaged (personal or 3rd party contractor) devices. And IT security teams need visibility into these devices and the ability to enforce compliance to meet the organization’s security policies such as ensuring that the operating system (OS) and web browser versions are up to date. The importance of verifying device posture at the time of authentication is emphasized in the guidance provided by OMB’s zero trust memorandum – “authorization systems should work to incorporate at least one device-level signal alongside identity information about the authenticated user.”

Duo can help organizations adopt a zero trust security model by enforcing strong user authentication across the board either through passwordless authentication where applicable or thought password + MFA where necessary, while providing a consistent user experience. Further, with capabilities such as device trust and granular adaptive policies, and with our vision for Continuous Trusted Access, organizations get a trusted security partner they can rely on for implementing zero trust access in their environment.

To learn more, check out the eBook – Passwordless: The Future of Authentication, which outlines a 5-step path to get started. And watch the passwordless product demo in this on-demand webinar .

Many of our customers have already begun their passwordless journey.  If you are looking to get started as well, sign-up for a free trial and reach out to our amazing representatives.

 


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Partner Summit 2022: Let’s Own the Opportunity to Build a World of Secure, Resilient Organizations

By Shailaja Shankar

It’s Partner Summit week and, for me, it’s an important reminder that no one company, not even Cisco, can do it alone. Our partners provide diverse perspectives, expertise, and solutions offerings. Each partner plays a key part in delivering the outcomes and experiences our customers need, want, and expect. So, when we say, “Let’s Own It”, it’s a rally cry for Cisco and our partners alike to do our parts to seize the massive opportunity that we have in front of us and turn it into mutual success.

Together, I know we can achieve amazing things. Foremost on my mind right now is both the opportunity and necessity to empower customers with security resilience. Resilience means customers can protect the integrity of every aspect of their business so that they can withstand unpredictable threats or changes and emerge stronger. It’s about providing controlled, trusted access to applications and services, at any time, from any place.

Resilience can also help customers deal with issues the moment they arise. If changes are needed, they will have the visibility to determine priorities, thanks to actionable intelligence and insight in the face of some major security realities that they are dealing with every day.

One, businesses are more interconnected, meaning that a breach on anyone in the value chain has dramatic ripple effects on the others.

Two, security attacks are becoming more personalized. Individuals remain one of the easiest targets for cybercriminals and their attacks are becoming more sophisticated and customized for the individual.

Three, hybrid work is here to stay. People around the world will continue to work from anywhere, on managed and unmanaged devices, over secured and unsecured networks, to applications spread across multiple clouds and data centers.

Innovating to win: Summary of Partner Summit announcements

Our vision for enabling a more resilient organization is the Cisco Security Cloud. It’s an open, integrated security platform that will protect the integrity of entire IT ecosystems by safeguarding users, devices and applications across public clouds and private data centers, without public cloud lock-in. Delivering on the Security Cloud is part of our long-term product strategy; but the innovations we are announcing at Partner Summit this week are foundational elements that execute on this vision.

Specifically, we are announcing new solutions and technologies across our portfolio in Secure Connectivity, Network Security, and Zero Trust. I encourage all partners to drill down on each announcement in the accompanying blogs and news announcements. But here are the highlights of the announcements.

Secure Access by Duo

Helping increase resistance to phishing attacks and improve user experience through frictionless access using Duo Passwordless, which is now generally available with support for Duo Mobile as a passwordless authenticator.

Secure Firewall 3100 Series

Expanding the Cisco Secure Firewall 3100 series, the first firewall purpose-built for hybrid work, with the Secure Firewall 3105, ideal for branch office and similar use cases focused on performance at a competitive price point.

Secure Connectivity Enhancements

Strengthening Umbrella’s data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities by adding API-based enforcement and unified reporting to protect sensitive data, e.g., intellectual property and financial and healthcare information. This complements Umbrella’s current inline-DLP functionality and collectively forms multi-mode DLP.

Cloud Application Security

New Secure Workload capabilities delivering policy-as-code workload security for cloud-native and public-cloud application development. Common use cases for policy-as-code include access control to infrastructure and simplifying enterprise compliance and controls.

Our partner enablement commitments

Our strategy and our innovation roadmap are all designed to set you up, our partners, for long-term success. In addition, we are committed to several partner enablement programs to help you deliver more value to customers and to help you become more profitable. Examples include:

  • Simplifying how you do business with Cisco: We are taking active steps to simplify the ease of doing business with Cisco Secure in ways that accelerate your velocity and scaling our growth through the channel. We are continuing to invest in our partners’ programs, offers, and expanding our routes to market so that our partners can be more profitable with Cisco Secure.
  • Compelling offers and promotions: Recent examples include “One Year on Us” that we expanded to include the complete SaaS and recurring software subscription portfolio. Specifically, partners can offer customers preferential pricing with 1-year free with a 3-year subscription purchase.
  • Investment in awareness: We want customers to ask for Cisco Secure by name, so we are aggressively investing in brand awareness. This includes a new secure the enterprise campaign “if it’s connected, it’s protected” designed to strengthen Cisco’s market perception as a world-class security solutions provider. We are also planning to back this up by investing more than $50 million in paid digital marketing specifically for security over the next year.

How you can own this week

Partner Summit is for you. So, my call-to-action is for you to maximize the value you get out of this week by attending as many of the informative, high-impact security sessions many teams worked hard to create. I am really looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible – on the expo floor, at the sessions, or in our 1-on-1 meetings.

Security has never been more critical and the need for resiliency is a requirement for virtually every business. The time for us to own it and innovate to win this future together has never been better.


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Employee Volunteer Program Supports Youth Globally

By Mary Kate Schmermund

Giving back is part of the ethos at Cisco. Part of how that happens is through employees volunteering as part of Cisco’s Time2Give benefit in which employees can use paid time to contribute to their communities and support the causes they’re passionate about. During the pandemic, Cisco increased this benefit from five paid volunteering days to 10 and encourages virtual volunteering, too.

Elizabeth Chang, a software engineer on the Duo Security platform services team, considers Time2Give a great opportunity to “invest in people around you. It is amazing that Cisco supports what we are passionate about and that we can use this time to grow ourselves in other areas of life,” she said.

Cisconians care deeply about many causes, and this post celebrates how teammates spend their time supporting children, youth and teens in and out of school and those preparing for college. Stay tuned for future posts highlighting how other employees give their time. You may even be inspired to find out how you can develop your skills while contributing to organizations that matter to you!

Summer + After School Engagement

Pierpaolo Panarotto, an account executive on Duo’s EMEAR continental team, volunteers at Sport senza frontiere onlus, a summer sports camp in Italy for refugee children. This summer Panarotto tutored and taught badminton. The program also welcomed children from Ukraine this year.

For Panarotto, the best part, hands down, was seeing the children’s smiles. He advised, “Give back to your community. Sometimes we forget how lucky we are.”

Chang also volunteered at a summer camp, supporting middle and high school students in Boston. The program she supported, Area Youth Ministry Leadership Camp and Summer Boost, fosters leadership skills and college readiness while promoting mentorship.

By helping lead a coding workshop, Chang was able to share what she does professionally. “I was glad that I got to help inspire youth to pursue computer science,” she said. The camp was such a hit that many participants “didn’t want to go home because they had such a fun time,” Chang shared.

“Take the time! You’ll never get the opportunity to go back and take it later. Your community and your heart will thank you!” – Sarah Moon-Musser

Now that school has started, Engineering Program Manager in Platform Engineering Sarah Moon-Musser helps teach the Belleville High School Marching Band’s color guard choreography for their halftime show. She loves spending time with the students. To those considering utilizing Time2Give Moon-Musser says, “Take the time! You’ll never get the opportunity to go back and take it later. Your community and your heart will thank you!”

Employees Volunteer to Support College Readiness Virtually

College readiness is also a passion for Justin Fan and Seema Kathuria who both volunteer with Code2College. They’re able to volunteer virtually by reviewing resumes and college entrance essays and providing constructive feedback through shared documents.

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Kathuria appreciates “learning about the experiences of high school students and how they approach writing about their accomplishments,” she said.

For Fan, a senior customer success manager in security customer success, “the best part is supporting younger generations as they move into college and career. They’re so much more focused and mature than I was at their age,” he said. Fan also participates in virtual career workshops with high school and college students with Students Rising Above.

Time2Give?

For others wanting to use Time2Give, Fan suggests finding opportunities you’re passionate about and utilizing light meeting days to volunteer. Kathuria says, “Take advantage of the 10 Time2Give days per year that Cisco gives us. It is very generous, and it feels so good to give back to the community in whatever way makes you happy and fulfilled.”

Employee Volunteer Program High on Your List?

If you’re looking to feel fulfilled by your work and the impact you can make, please check out our open roles.


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Top of Mind Security Insights from In-Person Interactions

By Shailaja Shankar

The past few months have been chockfull of conversations with security customers, partners, and industry leaders. After two years of virtual engagements, in-person events like our CISO Forum and Cisco Live as well as the industry’s RSA Conference underscore the power of face-to-face interactions. It’s a reminder of just how enriching conversations are and how incredibly interconnected the world is. And it’s only made closer by the security experiences that impact us all.  

I had the pleasure of engaging with some of the industry’s best and brightest, sharing ideas, insights, and what keeps us up at night. The conversations offered more than an opportunity to reconnect and put faces with names. It was a chance to discuss some of the most critical cybersecurity issues and implications that are top of mind for organizations.  

The collective sentiments are clear. The need for better security has never been so strong. Securing the future is good business. Disruptions are happening faster than ever before, making our interconnected world more unpredictable.  Hybrid work is here to stay, hybrid and complex architectures will continue to be a reality for most organizations and that has dramatically expanded the threat surface. More and more businesses are operating as ecosystems—attacks have profound ripple effects across value chains. Attacks are becoming more bespoke, government-sponsored threat actors and ransomware as a service, continue to unravel challenging businesses to minimize the time from initial breach to complete compromise, in the event of a compromise.  

Digital transformation and Zero Trust 

Regardless of where organizations are on their digital transformations, they are progressively embarking upon journeys to unify networking and secure connectivity needs. Mobility, BYOD (bring your own device), cloud, increased collaboration, and the consumerization of IT have necessitated a new type of access control security–zero trust security. Supporting a modern enterprise across a distributed network and infrastructure involves the ability to validate user IDs, continuously verify authentication and device trust, and protect every application— 

without compromising user experience. Zero trust offers organizations a simpler approach to securing access for everyone, from any device, anywhere—all the while, making it harder for attackers.  

Seeking a simpler, smarter ecosystem 

Simplicity continues to be a hot topic, and in the context of its functionality. In addition to a frictionless user experience, the real value to customers is improving operational challenges. Security practitioners want an easier way to secure the edge, access, and operations—including threat intelligence and response. Key to this simplified experience is connecting and managing business-critical control points and vulnerabilities, exchanging data, and contextualizing threat intelligence. And it requires a smarter ecosystem that brings together capabilities, unifying admin, policy, visibility, and control. Simplicity that works hard and smart—and enhances their security posture. The ultimate simplicity is improved efficacy for the organization. 

Everyone is an insider  

Insider cyber-attacks are among the fastest growing threats in the modern security network, an increasingly common cause of data breaches. Using their authorized access, employees are intentionally or inadvertently causing harm by stealing, exposing, or destroying sensitive company data. Regardless, the consequences are the same—costing companies big bucks and massive disruption. It’s also one of the reasons why “identity as the new perimeter” is trending, as the primary objective of all advanced attacks is to gain privileged credentials. Insider attack attempts are not slowing down. However, advanced telemetry, threat detection and protection, and continuous trusted access all help decelerate the trend. Organizations are better able to expose suspicious or malicious activities caused by insider threats. Innovations are enabling business to analyze all network traffic and historical patterns of employee access and determine whether to let an employee continue uninterrupted or prompt to authenticate again.  

The interconnection conundrum and the ransomware ruse   

Supply chain attacks have become one of the biggest security worries for businesses. Not only are disruptions debilitating, but no one knew the impacts or perceived outcomes. Attackers are highly aware that supply chains are comprised of larger entities often tightly connected to a broad array of smaller and less cyber-savvy organizations. Lured by lucrative payouts, attackers seek the weakest supply chain link for a successful breach. In fact, two of the four biggest cyber-attacks that the Cisco Talos team saw in the field last year were supply chain attacks that deployed ransomware on their targets’ networks: SolarWinds and REvil’s attack exploiting the Kaseya managed service provider. While there’s no perfect way to absolutely protect from ransomware, businesses are taking steps to bolster their defenses and protect against disaster. 

Data privacy is getting personal 

Security incidents targeting personal information are on the rise. In fact, 86 percent of global consumers were victims of identity theft, credit/debit card fraud, or a data breach in 2020. In a recent engagement discovered by the Cisco Talos team, the API on a customer’s website could have been exploited by an attacker to steal sensitive personal information. The good news is governments and businesses alike are leaning into Data Privacy and Protection, adhering to global regulations​ that enforce high standards for collecting, using, disclosing, storing, securing, accessing, transferring, and processing personal data.​ Within the past year, the U.S. government implemented new rules to ensure companies and federal agencies follow required cybersecurity standards. As long as cyber criminals continue seeking to breach our privacy and data, these rules help hold us accountable.  

Through all the insightful discussions with customers, partners, and industry leaders, a theme emerged. When it comes to cybersecurity, preparation is key and the cost of being wrong is extraordinary. By acknowledging there will continue to be disruptions, business can prepare for whatever comes next. And when it comes, they’ll not only weather the storm, but they will also come out of it stronger. And the good news is that Cisco Security Business Group is already on the journey actively addressing these headlines, and empowering our customers to reach their full potential, securely. 


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What do customers really want (and need) from security?

By Neville Letzerich

Insights from the RSA Conference and Cisco Live

What is it that customers truly want from their security? Is it simplicity? Robust protection? Agility and flexibility? Yes! In today’s uncertain world where new challenges are being thrown at IT teams each day, security must meet many diverse needs. At the end of the day, it’s about keeping the entire business resilient despite the chaos of the cyber world.  

As hybrid work, the move to the cloud, and increasingly insidious threats all converge to create layers of complexity, security teams must be extra vigilant and ready for what’s next. They need a comprehensive, integrated security system whose various components share information and work together to pinpoint attacks and minimize organizational impact — without introducing undue friction.

With businesses, networks, clouds and devices becoming so interconnected, delivering next-level security to match the future of work is a formidable undertaking — one that few vendors are positioned to tackle. But thanks to our nearly 40-year heritage of providing and protecting a vast amount of the world’s networking infrastructure, Cisco is up for the challenge.

“At a moment’s notice, we were able to transition 80 percent of our workforce to be remote — and our company was never remote before. Because of our Cisco solutions, we were able to deploy everything and have people work well remotely with very minimal issues.”

— Joseph Rodriguez, Assistant Director of IT, Allied Beverage Group  

How Cisco secures your resilience  

Delivering security that is simple, powerful and resilient is something we’ve been executing on for years, yet it’s never been more critical than it is at this very moment. The month of June has afforded us the perfect opportunity to showcase exactly how we plan to keep our customers cyber resilient both now and in the future.

Read about the five dimensions of security resilience.

During the RSA Conference and Cisco Live, we announced our strategic plan for the Cisco Security Cloud, a global, cloud-delivered, integrated platform that secures and connects organizations of any shape and size. As we continue to move towards the Cisco Security Cloud vision, we recently unveiled several advancements in our portfolio across SASE, XDR and zero trust.

You can read our news announcement to learn more about security resilience and how we’re delivering it. But more important than the ‘how’ is the ‘why.’ Why Cisco? What makes us uniquely positioned to secure your resilience?

Why Cisco?  

As I mentioned, our customers have trusted us with their networks for nearly four decades. Currently, 80 percent of the world’s internet traffic travels through Cisco infrastructure — so we have a pretty good handle on what’s going on out there. From a security standpoint alone, we have over 300,000 customers around the globe, including 100% of the Fortune 100.

As a leader in both networking and security, the breadth and depth of our solutions is unmatched. While other vendors are just beginning to join networking with security, we’ve been doing it for years. And yet, we’re continually finding ways to simplify our robust solutions for a streamlined user experience — no matter the size of your organization, where your employees work, or whether your applications are on-premises, in the cloud, or both.

Learn more about security resilience for the hybrid work era.

In addition to unparalleled infrastructure and expertise, our open, cloud-native architecture allows you to integrate with a wide range of third-party security and technology solutions for more seamless threat defense. This includes the major cloud vendors, enabling you to secure a multi-cloud environment without getting locked in with just one public cloud provider.

Additionally, all of our solutions are backed by Cisco Talos, one of the largest commercial threat intelligence teams in the world. Combined with in-depth visibility from our Cisco Secure technologies, Talos’ extensive insight into the threat landscape leads to rapid, highly effective detection and response.

Customer insights into the “new normal”  

Even more crucial than what we have to say is what we have heard from our customers surrounding the “new normal” for security. “I think what the security industry could use right now is a real business outcome-oriented viewpoint,” said Tom Doughty, vice president and CISO at Prudential Financial. “Meaning, what are the strategic business outcomes you’re trying to enable? Cisco can help security teams be more aligned to our business and more resilient by allowing us to see at a granular level what’s happening in our environment, especially in an extended network.”

For the law firm of George Sink, P.A., the demands of supporting hybrid work accelerated the company’s move to the cloud. The firm is now using Cisco’s new, turnkey SASE solution to securely serve its clients under any circumstance — be it a pandemic or a hurricane. According to the firm’s CIO, Timothy Mullen, “The ability to…re-establish connectivity in another region almost immediately, with my small IT team, is unheard of and a game-changing experience.”

From financial to legal transactions, and much more, we can secure it all with our open, integrated protection platform and unwavering focus on resilience. We even had the honor of securing the Super Bowl earlier this year, helping to safeguard mission-critical gameday operations. 

“The Super Bowl and events of that magnitude require a humongous orchestration of interconnectedness, not only from a technology perspective but also a people standpoint,” said NFL Chief Information Security Officer, Tomás Maldonado. “What we’re trying to do is slow down the bad actors and make it more difficult for them to attack us and impact what’s happening on the field. But at the same time, we also have to look beyond the field and think about all the various parts of our business that could be affected by an attack — recognizing that our risk factors are always changing.”

Safeguard your future with Cisco  

To learn more about how to keep your business strong in the face of adversity, visit our resilience web page and check out the blog from Cisco’s Jeetu Patel, “Security Resilience for a Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Future.”

Watch video: Voice of the Customer – Security Resilience


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How Cisco Duo Is Simplifying Secure Access for Organizations Around the World

By Jackie Castelli

At Cisco Duo, we continually strive to enhance our products to make it easy for security practitioners to apply access policies based on the principles of zero trust. This blog highlights how Duo is achieving that goal by simplifying user and administrator experience and supporting data sovereignty requirements for customers around the world. Read on to get an overview of what we have been delivering to our customers in those areas in the past few months.

Simplifying Administrator and End-User Experience for Secure Access 

Duo strives to make secure access frictionless for employees while reducing the administrative burden on IT (Information Technology) and helpdesk teams. This is made possible thanks to the strong relationship between our customers and our user research team. The insights we gained helped us implement some exciting enhancements to Duo Single Sign-On (SSO) and Device Trust capabilities.

Duo SSO unifies identities across systems and reduces the number of credentials a user must remember and enter to gain access to resources. Active Directory (AD) is the most popular authentication source connected to Duo SSO, accounting for almost 80% of all setups. To make Duo’s integration with AD even easier to implement, we have introduced Duo SSO support for multiple Active Directory forests for organizations that have users in multiple domains. Additionally, we added the Expired Password Resets feature in Duo SSO. It provides an easy experience for users to quickly reset their expired Active Directory password, log into their application, and carry on with their day. Continuing the theme of self service, we introduced a hosted device management portal – a highly requested feature from customers. Now administrators no longer need to host and manage the portal, and end users can login with Duo SSO to manage their authentication devices (e.g.: TouchID, security keys, mobile phone etc.) without needing to open IT helpdesk tickets.

We are also simplifying the administrator experience. We have made it easy for administrators to configure Duo SSO with Microsoft 365 using an out of the box integration. Duo SSO layers Duo’s strong authentication and flexible policy engine on top of Microsoft 365 logins. Further, we have heard from many customers that they want to deliver a seamless on-brand login experience for their workforce. To support this, we have made custom branding so simple that administrators can quickly customize their end-user authentication experience from the settings page in the Duo Admin Panel.

Device Trust is a critical capability required to enable secure access for the modern workforce from any location. We have made it easy for organizations to adopt device trust and distinguish between managed and unmanaged devices. Organizations can enforce a Trusted Endpoint policy to allow access only from managed devices for critical applications. We have eliminated the requirement to deploy and manage device certificates to enforce this policy. Device Health application now checks the managed status of a device. This lowers administrative overhead while enabling organizations to achieve a better balance between security and usability. We have also added out-of-box integrations with unified endpoint management solutions such as Active Directory domain-joined devices, Microsoft Intune, Jamf Pro and VMware Workspace ONE. For organizations that have deployed a solution that is not listed above, Duo provides a Device API that works with any enterprise device management system.

 Supporting Global Data Sovereignty Requirements 

To support our growing customer base around the world, Duo expanded its data center presence to  Australia, Singapore, and Japan in September last year. And now Duo is thrilled to announce the launch of the two new data centers in the UK and India. Both the new and existing data centers will allow customers to meet all local requirements, all while maintaining ISO27001 and SOC2 compliance and a 99.999% service availability goal.

The launch of the new data centers is the backbone of Duo’s international expansion strategy. In the last two years, Duo has met key international growth milestones and completed the C5 attestation (Germany), AgID certification (Italy) and IRAP assessment (Australia) – all of which demonstrate that Duo meets the mandatory baseline standards for use by the public sector in the countries listed above. Check out this Privacy Data Sheet to learn more about Cisco Duo’s commitment to our customer’s data privacy and data sovereignty.

Cisco Duo Continues to Democratize Security 

That is a summary of what we have been up to here at Cisco Duo in the past few months. But we are not done yet! Stay tuned for more exciting announcements at RSA Conference 2022 next week. Visit us at our booth at RSAC 2022 and World of solutions at Cisco Live 2022.

In the meanwhile, check out this on-demand #CiscoChat panel discussion with real-world security practitioners on how they have implemented secure access best practices for hybrid work using Duo. And if you do not want to wait, sign-up for a 30 day trial and experience how Duo can simplify secure access for your workforce.

 


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