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Core Infrastructure and Threat Hunting. 2
Cisco Secure Access Enables ZTNA for SOC… Read more on Cisco Blogs
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 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Duo SSO is already popular among Duo’s customers. Now, we are adding two new capabilities that cater to modern enterprises:
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.
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.
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!
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
Be impeccable with your words. It’s the first of the Four Agreements – a set of universal life principles outlined in the bestselling book by Don Miguel Ruiz. ‘Being impeccable with your words’ is my favorite, and it’s no surprise. As a product marketer, I spend most of my daily existence casting about for the perfect word to use in web copy, a webinar, or video script.
Words can connect us, as well as divide us. In helping to develop the message that Cisco takes to the market about zero trust, I try to be as impeccable as I can with each word. After all, cybersecurity is too important to be cavalier about what is possible – within a particular use case, product, or service.
Clarifying what zero trust means to you comes first. The zero trust principles reflect another of the four agreements: ‘Don’t make assumptions’. Don’t assume that a user or device is trusted based on their presence on the network, their type of device, or any other aspect of the connection request. Instead, verify it.
At the same time, don’t assume that everyone in your organization is in accord with, or clear on the goals of a zero trust initiative. Confirm goals and clearly communicate them. Over the past year, I’ve met with several customers keen to embark on zero trust and generally those goals involve one or more of the following:
The phrase zero trust does not inspire trust, clarity, or transparency. No name is perfect, but the challenge with calling an architecture that is consistent with a ‘never assume trust, always verify it, and enforce the principle of least-privilege’ policy ‘zero trust’ is that it sends the message that ‘one cannot ever be trusted’.
Changing the mindset of anyone is already a complex undertaking, but
starting off with a lack of trust (even if it’s only a word) doesn’t help.
Zero trust is simply good security. Zero trust is a conversation about the totality of the security stack, and how to bring it to bear in ways that allow teams to…
Simply put, make sure that one only has access to resources they need and that any violations of this policy are investigated.
Relationships build trust – an essential ingredient for zero trust momentum. In the Harvard Business Review’s “Begin with Trust”, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss describe three key drivers for trust: authenticity, logic, and empathy. Perhaps we can apply these drivers within the context of zero trust security:
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
Cybersecurity professionals are often perceived as sole practitioners, plying their craft in dimly lit rooms. Nothing could be further from the truth, as one of the keys to being a successful cybersecurity professional is the ability to collaborate and, more importantly, to share knowledge as far and wide as possible.
At Cisco, we have formed the Cisco Insider Advocacy program, which consists of a global community of professionals passionate about working and spreading their knowledge with others. We celebrate these individuals’ efforts with annual awards in various disciplines and locales. In 2023, Cisco will recognize top advocates by region for the Global Advocate Awards. Our first event – highlighting Cisco customers from across the EMEA region – is around the corner. It all happens at Cisco Live in Amsterdam, in a live ceremony on February 8!
I am joined on the Advocate Awards judges’ panel by my colleagues, Cindy Valladares, Director of Brand Strategy and Customer Advocacy at Cisco Secure, Caroline Surujpaul, EMEA and European Marketing Director at Cisco Secure and Sarah Stephens, Senior Security Marketing Leader for EMEA at Cisco Secure. We are pleased to introduce the nominees for the Cybersecurity Defender of the Year Award in EMEA.
We have five distinguished nominees, and while we have yet to select a winner, you will see how each of their contributions to Cisco’s cybersecurity community raised our attention.
Alessandro was featured in a recent successful case study about the Future of Work with Umbrella, as well as an earlier piece about simplified security using Cisco Meraki in Talent Garden.
Alessandro also authored a book about digital transformation long before it was a common buzzword. That is typical of Alessandro’s foresight, the ability to be proactive to changes before they are commonplace. He is indeed on the cutting edge.
Alessandro considers his involvement in the Advocacy community as “a very easy goal for me. First, because I’m very passionate about cybersecurity, and second because here I can find very valuable peers and professionals to share information with.” Alessandro’s abilities are borne from passion, drive, and adherence to a personal code of excellence; he learned security in a strictly hands-on style. He is also a member of Cisco’s “League of Cybersecurity Heroes.”
Christoffer, the newest Cisco Insider Advocacy community member, has gotten off to a brisk involvement with the group. He was recently featured in the case study “NTNU Supports a Diverse Academic and Research Community with Proactive Security,” which detailed how the Norwegian University of Science and Technology tackled the management of a dizzying 110,000 endpoints connecting to the university’s VPN.
Christoffer fully embraces the ideology of collaboration, mentioning that when he was seeking a security solution, “We didn’t want a vendor. We didn’t want a product. We wanted a partner to help us attack this large problem of cybersecurity.” He also demonstrates a fervent dedication to sharing by authoring half a dozen works in the cybersecurity realm, ranging from scientific to academic articles. His involvement in the Insider Advocacy community has earned him a spot in Cisco’s “League of Cybersecurity Heroes.”
Mark is one of the most erudite cybersecurity professionals one could meet. He has extensive educational credentials and enjoys sharing his knowledge, making him one of the Top 10 most engaged advocates of the Cybersecurity Channel within the Cisco Insider Advocates community.
Mark’s professional involvement extends beyond his local precinct, offering his knowledge of security best practices across the UK Policing community. In completing his most recent university degree, he authored a dissertation that “has led to an initiative to improve the security posture of my workplace.” Mark’s support to other Cisco customers has also led to his election as Vice-Chair of the Internet Society Cybersecurity Special Interest Group. He is also a member of Cisco’s “League of Cybersecurity Heroes.”
Luigi is a valuable member of the Insider Advocacy group and was recently featured in a video and written success story about Zero Trust and XDR.
Luigi is an agent of change who embraces the collaborative spirit of a true cybersecurity expert, as exemplified in his entire professional approach: “Since the infrastructure is now cloud-based, we had to change our mindset regarding cybersecurity as well. It was important to have the people, the process, the organisation, and the technology under the same security umbrella.”
When not working to ensure the security of the Sara Assicurazioni environment, Luigi has dedicated time to speaking at events, such as the “Experts Learning from Experts” global virtual session, a special virtual roundtable dedicated to Zero Trust and, last but not least, his presentation at Cisco Live Emea in Amsterdam about XDR and Zero Trust. His contributions to the Insider Advocacy platform reflect a tireless commitment to the cybersecurity community. Luigi is also a member of Cisco’s “League of Cybersecurity Heroes.”
Last year, Diego participated as speaker at the Tech Forum: Convergencia entre redes y seguridad. He will also be featured in a future ThreatWise TV – Cisco episode
Diego recognised early on that remote work would place his organisation outside the scope of their security and took proactive measures to meet the challenge. Part of his proactive approach is to freely communicate his ideas, leading to his involvement in the Insider Advocacy community. This has also earned him a place within Cisco’s “League of Cybersecurity Heroes.”
Diego’s view of working with Cisco’s products is summed up in a catchy phrase: “If it’s connected, it’s protected.” His involvement within the Insider Advocacy community makes us echo that sentiment by stating that he is connected, helping to keep everyone protected.
One point of note is the absence of women from the list of nominees. This was not the result of bias, as Cisco has a history of substantial diversity, equity, and inclusion. As you can see from the activities of the current nominees, the selection was based strictly on contributions to the community. We would love to see more engagement and membership in the Insider Advocacy program, not only from women but from a broader geographic area. This would increase the choices of possible nominees and add an even wider palette of inclusion to the entire nomination process.
We know that there is an entire population of cybersecurity professionals who seek more connection with like-minded individuals, and we welcome you to join this cohesive community.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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!
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
Our core mission in the NOC is network resilience. We also provide integrated security, visibility and automation, a SOC inside the NOC.
In part one, we covered:
In part two, we are going deep with security:
As the needs of Black Hat evolved, so did the Cisco Secure Technologies in the NOC:
The SecureX dashboard made it easy to see the status of each of the connected Cisco Secure technologies.
Since joining the Black Hat NOC in 2016, my goal remains integration and automation. As a NOC team comprised of many technologies and companies, we are pleased that this Black Hat NOC was the most integrated to date, to provide an overall SOC cybersecurity architecture solution.
We have ideas for even more integrations for Black Hat Asia and Black Hat USA 2023. Thank you, Piotr Jarzynka, for designing the integration diagram.
Below are the SecureX threat response integrations for Black Hat Europe, empowering analysts to investigate Indicators of Compromise very quickly, with one search.
The original Black Hat NOC integration for Cisco was NetWitness sending suspicious files to Threat Grid (know Secure Malware Analytics). We expanded that in 2022 with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR and used it in London, for investigation of malicious payload attack.
NetWitness observed a targeted attack against the Black Hat network. The attack was intended to compromise the network.
NetWitness extracted the payload and sent it to Secure Malware Analytics for detonation.
Reviewing the analysis report, we were able to quickly determine it was the MyDoom worm, which would have been very damaging.
The attack was blocked at the perimeter and the analysts were able to track and enrich the incident in XSOAR.
My first time at Black Hat turned out to be an incredible journey!
Thanks to the cybersecurity partnership between Paris 2024 and Cisco, I was able to integrate into the Cisco Crew, to operate the NOC/SOC as a Threat Hunter on the most dangerous network in the world for this European Edition of Black Hat.
My first day, I helped with deploying the network by installing the wireless Meraki APs on the venue, understanding how they were configured and how they could help analysts to identify and locate any client connected to the network that could have a bad behavior during the event, the idea being to protect the attendees if an attack was to spray on the network.
Following this “physical” deployment, I’ve been able to access the whole Cisco Secure environment including Meraki, Secure Malware Analytics, Umbrella, SecureX and the other Black Hat NOC partners software tools.
SecureX was definitely the product on which I wanted to step up. By having so fantastic professionals around me, we were able to dig in the product, identifying potential use cases to deploy in the orchestration module and expected integrations for Paris 2024.
Time was flying and so were the attendees to the conference, a network without user is fun but can be quite boring as nothing happens, having so many cybersecurity professional at the same place testing different security malwares, attacks and so on led us to very interesting investigations. A paradox at the Black Hat, we do not want to block malicious content as it could be part of exercises or training classes, quite a different mindset as what we, security defenders, are used to! Using the different components, we were able to find some observables/IOCs that we investigate through SecureX, SecureX being connected to all the other components helped us to enrich the observables (IPs, urls, domains…), understanding the criticality of what we identified (such as malware payloads) and even led us to poke the folks in the training classes to let them know that something really wrong was happening on their devices.
Being part of the Black Hat NOC was an incredible experience, I was able to meet fantastic professionals, fully committed on making the event a success for all attendees and exhibitors. It also helped me to better understand how products, that we use or will use within Paris 2024, could be leveraged to our needs and which indicators could be added to our various Dashboards, helping us to identify, instantaneously, that something is happening.
During the last day of Black Hat Europe, our NOC partner, NetWitness saw some files being downloaded on the network. The integration again automatically carved out the file and submitted the Cisco Secure Malware Analytics (SMA) platform. One of those files came back as a trojan, after SMA detonated the file in a sandbox environment. The specific hash is the below SHA-256:
938635a0ceed453dc8ff60eab20c5d168a882bdd41792e5c5056cc960ebef575
The screenshot below shows some of the behaviors that influenced the decision:
The result of seeing these behaviors caused SMA to give it the highest judgement score available to a detonated file:
After this judgement was made, we connected with the Palo Alto Networks team, and they found the IP address associated with the file download.
Once we had this information, we went to the Meraki dashboard and did a search for the IP address. The search returned only one client that has been associated with the address for the entire Black Hat conference.
Knowing that there has only been one client associated with the address made finding the attendee easier. We then needed to know where they were and Meraki had this figured out. After opening the client’s profile, we saw what SSID and access point (AP) they were connected to using the Meraki location map.
We then found the attendee and let them know to have their IT inspect their laptop to make sure it is clean.
Apart from the technical challenges of running a temporary network for N thousand people, the Black Hat event reminded us that success doesn’t happen without teamwork; that leadership isn’t just about keeping the project on track. It is also about looking after the team and that small details in planning, build up and tear down can be just as important, as having all the right tools and fantastically skilled Individuals using them during the event itself.
In the Cisco Secure technology stack, within the Black Hat NOC, we use SecureX Single Sign-on. This reduces the confusion of managing multiple accounts and passwords. It also streamlines the integrations between the Cisco products and our fellow NOC partners. We have an open ecosystem approach to integrations and access in the NOC, so we will provision Cisco Secure accounts for any staff member of the NOC. Logging into each individual console and creating an account is time consuming and can often lead to confusion on which tools to provision and which permission levels are needed.
To automate this process, I developed two workflows: one to create non-admin users for NOC partners and one to create administrator accounts in all the tools for Cisco staff. The workflows create accounts in SecureX, Secure Malware Analytics (Threat Grid), Umbrella DNS and Meraki dashboard, all using SecureX Single Sign-On.
Here is what the workflow looks like for creating non-admin users.
The workflow requires three inputs: first name, last name, and email. Click Run.
The sequence of API calls is as follows:
Once the workflow has completed successfully, the user will receive four emails to create a SecureX Sign-On account and accept the invitations to the various products. These workflows really improved our responsiveness to account provisioning requests and makes it much easier to collaborate with other NOC partners.
Over the previous Black Hat events, we have been utilizing Meraki scanning data to get location data for individual clients, as they roamed conference. In the initial blog post (Black Hat Asia 2022), we created a Docker container to accept the data from the Meraki Scanning API and save it for future analysis. At Black Hat USA 2022, we wrote about how to use Python Folium to use the flat text files to generate chronological heatmaps that illustrated the density of clients throughout the conference.
This time around, we’ve stepped it up again by integrating Umbrella DNS Security events and adding the ability to track clients across the heatmap using their local IP address.
To improve the portability of our data and the efficiency of our code, we began by moving from flat JSON files to a proper database. We chose SQLite this time around, though going forward we will likely use Mongo.
Both can be queried directly into Python Pandas dataframes which is what will give us the optimal performance we are looking for. We have a dedicated Docker container (Meraki-Receiver) that will validate the incoming data stream from the Meraki dashboard and insert the values into the database.
The database is stored on a Docker volume that can be mounted by our second container, the Meraki-Mapper. Though this container’s primary purpose is building the heatmaps, it also performs the task of retrieving and correlating Umbrella DNS security events. That is, any DNS query from the Black Hat network that matches one of several predefined security categories. Umbrella’s APIs were recently improved to add OAuth and simplify the URI scheme for each endpoint. After retrieving a token, we can get all security events in the time frame of the current heatmap with one call.
What we want to do with these events is to create Folium Markers. These are static “pins” that will sit on the map to indicate where the DNS query originated from. Clicking on a marker will popup more information about the query and the client who sent it.
Thanks to the Umbrella Virtual Appliances in the Black Hat network, we have the internal IP address of the client who sent the DNS query. We also have the internal IP address in the Meraki scanning data, along with the latitude and longitude. After converting the database query into a Pandas dataframe, our logic takes the IP address from the DNS query and finds all instances in the database of location data for that IP within a 5-minute window (the resolution of our heatmap).
What we end up with is a list of dictionaries representing the markers we want to add to the map. Using Bootstrap, we can format the popup for each event to make it look a bit more polished. Folium’s Popup plugin allows for an iFrame for each marker popup.
The result is a moving heatmap covering an entire day on a given conference floor, complete with markers indicating security events (the red pushpin icon).
Clicking on the pushpin shows the details of the query, allowing us in the NOC to see the exact location of the client when they sent it.
To further improve this service during the next conference, we plan to implement a web page where NOC staff can submit an IP address and immediately get map tracking that client through the conference floor. This should give us an even more efficient way to find and notify folks who are either behaving maliciously or appear to be infected.
For years we have been tracking the DNS stats at the Blackhat conferences. The post-pandemic 2022 numbers look like we never skipped a beat after the dip in DNS queries from 2021, seen in the bar graph below. This year’s attendance saw well over 11 million total DNS queries.
The Activity volume view from Umbrella gives a top-level level glance of activity by category, which we can drill into for deeper threat hunting. On trend with the previous Black Hat Europe events, the top Security categories were Dynamic DNS and Newly Seen Domains. However, it’s worth noting a proportionally larger increase in the cryptomining and phishing categories from 9 to 17 and 28 to 73, respectively, compared to last year.
These years, Black Hat saw over 4,100 apps connect to the network, which is nearly double of what was seen last year. However, still not topping over 6,100 apps seen at Black Hat USA early this year.
Should the need arise, we can block any application, such as Mail.ru above.
Black Hat Europe 2022 was the best planned and executed NOC in my experience, with the most integrations and visibility. This allowed us the time to deal with problems, which will always arise.
We are very proud of the collaboration of the team and the NOC partners.
Black Hat Asia will be in May 2023, at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore…hope to see you there!
Thank you to the Cisco NOC team:
Also, to our NOC partners NetWitness (especially David Glover, Iain Davidson, Alessandro Contini and Alessandro Zatti), Palo Alto Networks (especially James Holland, Matt Ford, Matt Smith and Mathew Chase), Gigamon, IronNet, and the entire Black Hat / Informa Tech staff (especially Grifter ‘Neil Wyler’, Bart Stump, Steve Fink, James Pope, Jess Stafford and Steve Oldenbourg).
For 25 years, Black Hat has provided attendees with the very latest in information security research, development, and trends. These high-profile global events and trainings are driven by the needs of the security community, striving to bring together the best minds in the industry. Black Hat inspires professionals at all career levels, encouraging growth and collaboration among academia, world-class researchers, and leaders in the public and private sectors. Black Hat Briefings and Trainings are held annually in the United States, Europe and USA. More information is available at: blackhat.com. Black Hat is brought to you by Informa Tech.
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Give the gift of security resilience and receive instant savings from a secure choice enterprise agreement.
When it comes to the holidays, most thoughts turn towards shopping and spending time with friends and loved ones. In the business world, the holiday season often lands at the end of the quarter / fiscal year, and businesses start to make lists of things that need to be purchased in the coming years, and sometimes they find themselves wanting to purchase a gift – so to speak – for themselves.
The problem that many organizations face is that when it comes to purchasing products and services, balancing today’s needs and budget isn’t as easy as it sounds. Add to this the concern of unclear future security needs which can be stressful. But what if you could get exactly what you need, protect the budget and future-proof your investment at the same time?
We want to give a gift to you. That is right, you read that correctly. We want to make your holidays a little bit more special with the gift of security resilience. And we can offer that to you with instant savings.
Here are a few examples of how you can build the gift of security resilience that best fits your organization’s security needs today and is ready to grow with your tomorrow.
Provide edge to edge protection. Hold the first line of defense against cyberthreats for branch offices and remote users. Maintain the last line of defense, by protecting your endpoint devices with rapid incident detection, response, and remediation of advanced threats.
Provide protection for your users and devices with these essential Cisco Secure products.
Protect what matters, get cloud and application protection that secures internet access, safeguards cloud app usage, and identifies public cloud threats. Build out your cloud and application security with these essential Cisco Secure products.
Cisco Secure Zero Trust helps you transform your business with continuous verification of users and devices for secure access. These Cisco Secure products are part of the essential architecture towards building zero trust secure access.
Choose any of the two Cisco Secure products that you want to buy towards building out user and device security, cloud and application security, zero trust secure access, or any of our security solutions. You do not have to stop with two, you have the freedom to grow; add more, save more.
Cisco Secure products you can choose from:
Give the Gift of Security with a Cisco Secure Choice Enterprise Agreement
Choose, buy, and deploy Cisco Secure products through one easy-to-manage Cisco Secure Choice Enterprise Agreement; save more as you buy more for all of those on your holiday list. Protect your end users working remotely, in office only, or in a hybrid environment as with more devices on and off the network, cybersecurity risks are not slowing down anytime soon. Build the solution that best fits your organization through a single, flexible agreement that lets you pay annually, as you go, over 3 or 5 years, with 0% financing.
With Cisco’s Secure Choice Enterprise Agreements, you can add security resilience in 2023 and beyond, with exactly the security products and services you need, right when you need them the most.
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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.
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.”
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.
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.
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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Cisco supports the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework and is a launch partner of AWS Security Lake
The Cisco Secure Technical Alliance supports the open ecosystem and AWS is a valued technology alliance partner, with integrations across the Cisco Secure portfolio, including SecureX, Secure Firewall, Secure Cloud Analytics, Duo, Umbrella, Web Security Appliance, Secure Workload, Secure Endpoint, Identity Services Engine, and more.
We are proud to be a launch partner of AWS Security Lake, which allows customers to build a security data lake from integrated cloud and on-premises data sources as well as from their private applications. With support for the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF) standard, Security Lake reduces the complexity and costs for customers to make their security solutions data accessible to address a variety of security use cases such as threat detection, investigation, and incident response. Security Lake helps organizations aggregate, manage, and derive value from log and event data in the cloud and on-premises to give security teams greater visibility across their organizations.
With Security Lake, customers can use the security and analytics solutions of their choice to simply query that data in place or ingest the OCSF-compliant data to address further use cases. Security Lake helps customers optimize security log data retention by optimizing the partitioning of data to improve performance and reduce costs. Now, analysts and engineers can easily build and use a centralized security data lake to improve the protection of workloads, applications, and data.
Cisco Secure Firewall serves as an organization’s centralized source of security information. It uses advanced threat detection to flag and act on malicious ingress, egress, and east-west traffic while its logging capabilities store information on events, threats, and anomalies. By integrating Secure Firewall with AWS Security Lake, through Secure Firewall Management Center, organizations will be able to store firewall logs in a structured and scalable manner.
The eNcore client provides a way to tap into message-oriented protocol to stream events and host profile information from the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. The eNcore client can request event and host profile data from a Management Center, and intrusion event data only from a managed device. The eNcore application initiates the data stream by submitting request messages, which specify the data to be sent, and then controls the message flow from the Management Center or managed device after streaming begins.
These messages are mapped to OCSF Network Activity events using a series of transformations embedded in the eNcore code base, acting as both author and mapper personas in the OCSF schema workflow. Once validated with an internal OCSF schema the messages are then written to two sources, first a local JSON formatted file in a configurable directory path, and second compressed parquet files partitioned by event hour in the S3 Amazon Security Lake source bucket. The S3 directories contain the formatted log are crawled hourly and the results are stored in an AWS Security Lake database. From there you can get a visual of the schema definitions extracted by the AWS Glue Crawler, identify fieldnames, data types, and other metadata associated with your network activity events. Event logs can also be queried using Amazon Athena to visualize log data.
To utilize the eNcore client with AWS Security Lake, first go to the Cisco public GitHub repository for Firepower eNcore, OCSF branch.
Download and run the cloud formation script eNcoreCloudFormation.yaml.
The Cloud Formation script will prompt for additional fields needed in the creation process, they are as follows:
Cidr Block: IP Address range for the provisioned client, defaults to the range shown below
Instance Type: The ec2 instance size, defaults to t2.medium
KeyName A pem key file that will permit access to the instance
AmazonSecurityLakeBucketForCiscoURI: The S3 location of your Data Lake S3 container.
FMC IP: IP or Domain Name of the Cisco Secure Firewall Mangement Portal
After the Cloud Formation setup is complete it can take anywhere from 3-5 minutes to provision resources in your environment, the cloud formation console provides a detailed view of all the resources generated from the cloud formation script as shown below.
Once the ec2 instance for the eNcore client is ready, we need to whitelist the client IP address in our Secure Firewall Server and generate a certificate file for secure endpoint communication.
In the Secure Firewall Dashboard, navigate to Search->eStreamer, to find the allow list of Client IP Addresses that are permitted to receive data, click Add and supply the Client IP Address that was provisioned for our ec2 instance. You will also be asked to supply a password, click Save to create a secure certificate file for your new ec2 instance.
Download the Secure Certificate you just created, and copy it to the /encore directory in your ec2 instance.
Use CloudShell or SSH from your ec2 instance, navigate to the /encore directory and run the command bash encore.sh test
You will be prompted for the certificate password, once that is entered you should see a Successful Communication message as shown below.
Run the command bash encore.sh foreground
This will begin the data relay and ingestion process. We can then navigate to the S3 Amazon Security Lake bucket we configured earlier, to see OCSF compliant logs formatted in gzip parquet files in a time-based directory structure. Additionally, a local representation of logs is available under /encore/data/* that can be used to validate log file creation.
Amazon Security Lake then runs a crawler task every hour to parse and consume the logs files in the target s3 directory, after which we can view the results in Athena Query.
More information on how to configure and tune the encore eStreamer client can be found on our official website, this includes details on how filter certain event types to focus your data retention policy, and guidelines for performance and other detailed configuration settings.
You can participate in the AWS Security Lake public preview. For more information, please visit the Product Page and review the User Guide.
While you are at AWS re:Invent, go see a demo video of the Security Lake integrations in the Cisco Booth #2411, from November 29 to December 2, 2022, at the Cloud, Network and User Security with Duo demo station.
Learn more about Cisco and AWS on the Cisco Secure Technical Alliance website for AWS.
Thank you to Seyed Khadem-Djahaghi, who spend long hours working with the beta to develop this integration and is the primary for developer of eNore.
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Since releasing SecureX orchestration, we’ve regularly published two types of content for our customers to import and use: atomic actions and workflows. Atomic actions are small, re-usable functions that allow you to do simple things like isolating an endpoint in Cisco Secure Endpoint. Workflows are more complex combinations of activities, often made up of multiple atomic actions, that accomplish a broader objective. One of our most popular workflows fetches blog posts from Talos and then conducts an investigation into each post using a customer’s SecureX-integrated products. As of this blog post’s publishing, we’ve released 75 workflows. So, let’s talk about what’s new…
In the past, when you wanted to communicate with SecureX APIs, you had to go through a multi-step process to generate an API client, use that API client to get a token, and then refresh the token every 10 minutes. This process wasn’t exactly simple, so in April we released the new SecureX Token account key. This special type of account key allows you to integrate with SecureX APIs without creating an API client, generating a token, or worrying about when the token expires. Simply use a SecureX target in conjunction with a SecureX Token account key and the platform takes care of the tokens. For more information about this update and how to take advantage of this new functionality, check out our documentation. Keep in mind that if your orchestration tenant was created prior to April 2022, you may need to create a SecureX Token.
Now that we have SecureX Token account keys and customers have been using them for a few months, we decided it was time to update all of our previously published workflows to be fully compatible with the new account key type. All 24 workflows using SecureX APIs have now been updated to leverage SecureX Tokens. For more information about Cisco-published workflows, check out our workflow list.
Since Cisco Secure Firewall is almost always deployed on-premises and behind a firewall, integrating it with SecureX orchestration in the cloud has required the use of a SecureX orchestration remote. Not all of our customers are interested in deploying an on-premises virtual machine or they lack a VMware ESXi deployment within which to run the VM. Now, with the release of the SecureX Security Services Exchange (SSE) API proxy, you can integrate your SSE-registered FMC devices with orchestration workflows without the need for additional remotes or virtual machines. To show how this works and highlight how easy this integration is, we re-released five of our existing FMC workflows with support for the SSE API proxy:
To stay updated on what’s new with SecureX, check out the following resources:
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SaaS Security Marketing Manager Laura O’Melia has always been interested in living and working internationally. After living in Austin, Texas for twenty years, O’Melia was ready for a new adventure and decided to move to Sydney, Australia with the support and encouragement of her manager and Cisco. The pandemic delayed her plans, but now that O’Melia’s settling into life and work in Australia, she shared how she made the move to work from anywhere and how you can, too.
What do you do?
O’Melia: I am on the Security Marketing team and focus on driving demand for our Zero Trust solution in the Asia-Pacific, Japan and China (APJC) region. I work closely with the Sales teams to do activities that will generate pipeline and educate prospects on our security solutions. I spend time finding new leads and trying new ways to engage with our top prospects while having fun along the way.
What do you like most about working at Cisco?
O’Melia: What I love most about working at Cisco is the amount of positive contributions we get to have on the world, from solving some of the world’s biggest problems around cybersecurity to giving money and resources to others in need. I also love the feeling of empowerment to create my own work/life balance as Cisco allows me the opportunity to have a flexible schedule.
What has been your career journey within Cisco?
O’Melia: I started at Duo Security in 2017. While working in Field Marketing, I was able to gain experience across many different teams. For example, I worked closely with a region in the U.S. as well as the Managed Service Provider team, which is a global team with a completely different business model. The needs differ greatly, from how we report and track metrics to the messaging and offers from one team to the next. I am now working in a very different market that is much larger and includes many more languages, so that brings a new level of understanding to how we show up in the market to achieve business goals.
“Stepping outside of my comfort zone is one of my favorite things to do.”
– Laura O’Melia
What prompted you to relocate from Austin, Texas to Sydney, Australia?
O’Melia: Austin is great and was my home for 20 years, but I still wanted to gain international work experience to learn what it would be like somewhere else and compare it to what I know.
Stepping outside of my comfort zone is one of my favorite things to do, so when I heard Duo was expanding internationally and there was an opportunity in Australia, I was immediately interested. Everyone I know that has visited Australia always has absolutely wonderful things to say, so without ever having visited I agreed to take a long-term international two-year assignment.
How has Cisco supported your relocation?
O’Melia: I worked closely with my manager on the process from start to finish. We had the support of Cisco’s Mobility Services team, a group of Cisco employees that help with relocation services. We worked with immigration to obtain my work visa. I was planning to relocate in March 2020 but as we know, the borders were closed and visas were not being processed for nearly two years. I was already in-role, so continued to support the APJC team from Austin.
When the time came, Cisco had a team of experts that I worked with to pack and ship my belongings and help get set up with an overseas bank. I also worked with a realtor to help me find a place to live, and the team even assists with my U.S. and Australian tax returns while I am away.
How has your work changed since relocating?
O’Melia: My role has expanded from doing lead-gen events for Duo in Australia and New Zealand to now being responsible for driving demand across the APJC region through digital campaigns and other marketing channels. I still strive to provide qualified leads to Sales and educate the market on our offerings. My goal is to help get Cisco Secure solutions into more doors to ultimately give users a better experience and stop the bad actors from doing harm.
What advice do you have for others who want to work from anywhere?
O’Melia: If you get the opportunity, take it. Everyone has their own path, but if you feel your career could benefit, even slightly, from the experience you will gain moving to another country and figuring things out far from what you know today, why not give it a try? You can learn so much from meeting and working with people that have a very different experience than you might know.
Ready for an adventure? If you want to solve global challenges through cybersecurity with the potential to work anywhere, check out our open roles.
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Welcome back! In our last article, you cleared out your extraneous digital footprints by removing unnecessary accounts and opting-out of data broker services, and have finished a dedicated review of your online history. In this final section, we will answer the natural question encountered at the end of any journey: What’s next?
Before becoming the series you’ve just read, I presented a version of this many times as a live talk at conferences and training sessions. After the first few talks, I noticed a consistent trend in the feedback when I was approached afterwards: people who said they felt anxious about how their online activity going forward might share more than they want. So I went back and added a final section to the talk, one that we’re going to cover together now: risk acceptance and the value of routine in good security.
Some people think that the goal of good security is to eliminate risk. One of the first lessons you learn in this industry, though, is that eradicating every possible risk is very rarely practical, whether we’re talking about the individual or organizational level. This is because there are few choices one can make with zero possibility of a negative outcome, and because human beings are… human, and even with excellent discipline and good intent the best of us can mess up.
The goal of good security strategy is instead to assess risk and find a healthy balance: to decide what is more or less important and valuable, to determine how damaging the worst-case scenario might be and weigh that against the potential benefits, and figuring out how much you can reasonably do to tip the balance and increase your odds of success.
That’s fairly abstract, so let’s use a couple quick practical examples at both levels:
I don’t know about you, but I grew up as a child of the internet, and the thought of never going online again isn’t one I’m likely to seriously consider. So rather than logging off forever, let’s focus on how we can both stay safe and stay connected. We’ve completed the “3 R’s” of the self-dox process: Review, Restrict, and Remove. But now, a surprise more shocking than the Spanish Inquisition itself: we’re going to add two final steps-Repeat and Refine.
Every good security plan includes a plan for routine follow-up. We know that staying offline forever isn’t practical, so the next best thing is to set up a reminder to go through an easier version of this checklist on a regular schedule. Why is it easier? In this review, you had to look back on your entire life up to the present, and next time you’ll just need to look back from then to… well… now! Depending on how active you are online and how likely you are to be doxxed, this might make sense to do on an annual basis, or split into abbreviated and more frequent quarterly reviews.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this review, but here are some typical checks you may want to consider:
Before we move on to our final (final, I promise!) step, let’s talk one more kind of repeating. A wifi repeater is a gadget that can connect to and boost the signal from a wireless network, helping to expand the network’s reach and keep a strong connection. In the same way, by sharing the lessons you’ve learned with your family and friends you will expand the reach of that security knowledge. Not only does that help keep the people you care about safer… but since we’ve seen how information shared about us by others can also be discovered by doxxers, it helps to increase your own safety as well!
My goal in writing this series was to give a straightforward introduction and broadly-useful walkthrough of how to figure out what’s out there about you online. In the beginning of this series, I talked about how the level of risk for doxxing is not the same for everyone. You may want to go significantly further than we’ve covered in this guide if you are:
This can cover a wide range of additional steps like placing a freeze on your credit report, requesting a privacy removal from search engines, or even setting up dedicated secure devices/apps for communication online. The full scope of these additional protections is beyond what we can cover here, but I will again recommend the Self-Doxxing Guide from AccessNow and the Gender and Tech Safety Resource guide linked in the first post of this series as an excellent reference for where else you might want to check.
Thank you for following along with me on this journey, and I hope that you found this guide and the resources shared have been helpful for you. Still have questions, or have you discovered any of the links/tools here are no longer available? Please let me know! Life comes at you fast on the web, and I want to make sure this guide continues to be relevant and helpful for a long time to come. You can drop me a line at zoe@duo.com, or find me on Twitter. Until then, happy trails and stay safe out there!
If you can’t get enough security content and care deeply about making the web safer for everyone, we’d also love to hear from you. Please check out our open positions and how your passion can contribute to keeping people safe online.
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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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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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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 offers a flexible choice of passwordless authentication options to meet the needs of businesses and their use cases. This includes:
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.
FIDO2 authentication is regarded as phishing-resistant authentication because it:
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.
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.
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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With passwords and MFA out of the way, let’s next look at connected apps or services that are tied to our priority accounts. When you log into other sites on the web through Facebook, Google, or another social account, as well as when you install social media apps or games, you are sharing information about those accounts with those services. This may be as limited as the email address and username on file, or may include much more information like your friends list, contacts, likes/subscriptions, or more.
A well-known example of this data-harvesting method is the Cambridge Analytica story, where installing a social media app opened up access to much more information than users realized. (Note: as mentioned in the linked article, Facebook added protective measures to limit the amount of data available to app developers, but connected accounts can still present a liability if misused.)
With this in mind, look under the Security or Privacy section of each of your account’s settings, and review where you have either used this account to log into a third-party website or allowed access when installing an app. Here are some handy links to some of the most common services to check:
If you aren’t going to use the app again or don’t want to share any details, remove them. Once you’ve checked your accounts, repeat this process with all the apps installed on your phone.
Just like connecting a social account to a third-party game can share information like your contact info and friend’s list, installing an app on your mobile device can share information including your contacts, camera roll and more. Fortunately, mobile OSes have gotten much better at notifying users before installation on what information is shared, so you should be able to see which apps might be nosier than you’re comfortable with.
Finally — and this is really for the nerds and techies out there — check if you have any API (short for “application programming interface”) keys or browser extensions connected to your accounts. API keys are commonly used to let different apps or services “talk” between one another. They let you use services like Zapier or IFTTT to do things like have your Spotify favorites automatically saved to a Google Sheet, or check Weather Underground to send a daily email with the forecast.
Browser extensions let you customize a web browser and integrate services, like quickly clicking to save an article for review on a “read it later” service like Instapaper. Even if you trust the developer when installing these apps, they may pose a risk later on if they are recovered or taken over by an attacker. These “zombie extensions” rely on a broad install base from a legitimate service which can later be misused to gather information or launch attacks by a malicious developer.
We’ve made great progress already, and taken steps to help defend your accounts from prying eyes going forward – now it’s time to lock down your previous activities on social media. Rather than enumerate every option on every service, I’ll highlight some common tools and privacy settings you’ll want to check:
Before moving on to email, I’ll add another plug for the NYT Social Media Security and Privacy Checklists if you, like me, would rather have a series of boxes to mark off while going through each step above.
Security experts know that you can’t erase the possibility of risk, and it can be counterproductive to build a plan to that expectation. What is realistic and achievable is identifying risk so you know what you’re up against, mitigating risk by following security best practices, and isolating risk where possible so that in the event of an incident, one failure doesn’t have a domino effect affecting other resources. If that seems a bit abstract, let’s take a look at a practical example.
Tech journalist Mat Honan was the unlucky victim of a targeted hack, which resulted in a near-complete lockout from his digital life requiring a Herculean effort to recover. Fortunately for us, Mat documented his experience in the Wired story, “How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking,” which offers an excellent summary of exactly the type of domino effect I described. I encourage you to read the full article, but for a CliffsNotes version sufficient for our needs here:
Honan’s article goes into much more detail, including some of the changes made by the services exploited to prevent similar incidents in the future. The key takeaway is that having a couple of emails without strong authentication tied to all his most important accounts, including the recovery of these email accounts themselves, meant that the compromise of his Amazon account quickly snowballed into something much bigger.
We’re going to learn from that painful lesson, and do some segmentation on our email channels based on the priority and how public we want that account to be. (“Segmentation” is an industry term that can be mostly boiled down to “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, and keep critical or vulnerable resources separate from each other.) I would suggest setting up a few different emails, listed here from least- to most-public:
For all of the above, of course, we’ll create strong passwords and set up 2FA. And speaking of 2FA, you can use the same split-channel approach we followed for email to set up a dedicated verification number (using a VOIP service or something like Google Voice) when sending a passcode by SMS is the only option supported. Keeping these recovery numbers separate from your main phone number reduces the risk of them being leaked, sold, or captured in an unrelated breach.
Good news: We’re almost done with doxxing ourselves! In the next section, we’ll sweep out those unused accounts to avoid leaving data-filled loose ends and take a look at how data brokers profit off of your personal information and what you can do to opt-out.
You’ve made it this far so maybe you’re passionate like we are about developing innovative ways to make security accessible. We’d love for you to join our mission.
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In the first step of our doxxing research, we collected a list of our online footprint, digging out the most important accounts that you want to protect and obsolete or forgotten accounts you no longer use. Because the most recent and relevant data is likely to live in the accounts you use regularly, our next step will be to review the full scope of what’s visible from these accounts and to set more intentional boundaries on what is shared.
It’s important to note here that the goal isn’t to eliminate every trace of yourself from the internet and never go online again. That’s not realistic for the vast majority of people in our connected world (and I don’t know about you, but even if it was I wouldn’t want to!) And whether it’s planning for an individual or a giant organization, security built to an impossible standard is destined to fail. Instead, we are shifting you from default to intentional sharing, and improving visibility and control over what you do want to share.
Before making changes to the settings and permissions for each of these accounts, we’re going to make sure that access to the account itself is secure. You can start with your email accounts (especially any that you use as a recovery email for forgotten passwords, or use for financial, medical, or other sensitive communications). This shouldn’t take very long for each site, and involves a few straightforward steps:
The best way to prevent a breached password from exposing another account to attack is to use a unique password for for every website you visit. And while you may have heard previous advice on strong passwords (along the lines of “eight or more characters, with a mix of upper/lower case letters, numbers, and special characters”), more recent standards emphasize the importance of longer passwords. For a great explanation of why longer passwords work better than shorter, multi-character type passwords, check out this excellent XKCD strip:
A password manager will make this process much easier, as most have the ability to generate unique passwords and allow you to tailor their length and complexity. While we’re on the topic of what makes a good password, make sure that the password to access your password manager is both long and memorable.
You don’t want to save or auto-fill that password because it acts as the “keys to the kingdom” for everything else, so I recommend following a process like the one outlined in the comic above, or another mnemonic device, to help you remember that password. Once you’ve reset the password, check for a “log out of active devices” option to make sure the new password is used.
MFA uses two or more “factors” verifying something you know, something you have, or something you are. A password is an example of “something you know”, and here are a few of the most common methods used for an additional layer of security:
If you want to know more about the different ways you can log in with strong authentication and how they vary in effectiveness, check out the Google Security Team blog post “Understanding the Root Cause of Account Takeover.”
Before we move on from passwords and 2FA, I want to highlight a second step to log in that doesn’t meet the standard of strong authentication: password questions. These are usually either a secondary prompt after entering username and password, or used to verify your identity before sending a password reset link. The problem is that many of the most commonly-used questions rely on semi-public information and, like passcodes, are entered on the same device used to log in.
Another common practice is leveraging common social media quizzes/questionnaires that people post on their social media account. If you’ve seen your friends post their “stage name” by taking the name of their first pet and the street they grew up on, you may notice that’s a combination of two pretty common password questions! While not a very targeted or precise method of attack, the casual sharing of these surveys can have consequences beyond their momentary diversion.
One of the first widely-publicized doxxings happened when Paris Hilton’s contact list, notes, and photos were accessed by resetting her password using the password question, “what is your favorite pet’s name?”. Because Hilton had previously discussed her beloved chihuahua, Tinkerbell, the attacker was able to use this information to access the account.
Sometimes, though, you’ll be required to use these password questions, and in those cases I’ve got a simple rule to keep you safe: lie! That’s right, you won’t be punished if you fib when entering the answers to your password questions so that the answers can’t be researched, and most password managers also include a secure note field that will let you save your questions and answers in case you need to recall them later.
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Shiva Persaud is the director of security engineering for Cisco. His team is responsible for the Cisco Secure Development Lifecycle (CSDL), a set of practices based on a “secure-by-design” philosophy developed to ensure that security and compliance are top-of-mind in every step of a solution’s lifecycle. This blog is the third in a series focused on M&A cybersecurity, following Jason Button’s post on Demonstrating Trust and Transparency in Mergers and Acquisitions.
One of the most important considerations when Cisco acquires a company, is ensuring that the security posture of the acquisition’s solutions and infrastructure meets the enterprise’s security standards. That can be a tricky proposition and certainly doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, at Cisco, it only comes about thanks to the efforts of a multitude of people working hard behind the scenes.
“The consistent message is that no matter where a product is in its security journey, from inception to end-of-life activities, there’s still a lot of work that can happen to lead to a better security outcome,” says Persaud.
While Persaud and his team work within Cisco on all the company’s products and solutions, they also play a critical role in maintaining security standards in Cisco’s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) work.
Simply put, Persaud’s team is tasked with identifying the security risks posed by an acquisition’s technology and helping teams mitigate those risks.
“It starts with a risk assessment where we ask ourselves what an attacker would do to compromise this specific technology,” says Persaud. “What are the industry best practices for securing this type of technology? What do our customers expect this technology to provide from a security perspective? And once we have those risks enumerated, we prioritize them to decide which is the most important to take care of first.”
To anticipate where a hacker might find vulnerabilities and the actions they might take, the CSDL team must put themselves in that attack mindset. Fortunately for Persaud, his interest in computer security started as early as middle school. “It just kind of grew from there,” he says. “For many folks I’ve worked with and hired over the years, it’s a similar situation.”
That lifelong interest and experience work to the team’s advantage. They take a risk-based approach to security, in which they identify all the issues that need to be fixed and then rate them based on the likelihood of occurrence and seriousness of the results of an attack. Those ratings inform their decisions on which issues to fix first.
“We come up with ways to go mitigate those risks and co-author a plan called the Security Readiness Plan, or SRP,” Persaud says. “Then we partner with teams to take that plan and execute it over time.”
In alignment with CSDL’s continuous approach to security throughout a solution’s lifecycle, Persaud says that “security is a journey, so the workflow to finish the secure development lifecycle never ends.”
While initial onboarding of an acquired company—including completion of the initial risk assessment and the SRP—typically ends within several months of the acquisition. Persaud adds, “The work continues as the technology is integrated into a larger tech stack or as it’s modified and sold as a standalone offering to our customers.” As the solution or technology evolves and begins to include new features and functionalities, the CSDL work continues to make sure those features are secure as well.
That work can have its obstacles. Persaud says that one of the primary challenges his team deals with is cutting through the flurry of activity and bids for the acquisition’s attention that come pouring in from all sides. It’s a crazy time for both Cisco and the acquisition, with many important tasks at the top of everyone’s to-do lists. “Not just in the security realm,” says Persaud,” but in many other areas, too. So being able to get the acquisition to focus on security in a meaningful way in the context of everything else that’s happening is a major challenge.”
Another challenge is dealing with acquisitions that might not have much security expertise on their original team. That means they’re not able to give Persaud’s team much help in determining where security risks lie and how serious they are—so Cisco’s engineers have a lot more investigative work to do.
When asked what advice he would give to organizations that want to maintain a good security posture when acquiring another company, Persaud names three key factors.
To succeed in M&A security, it’s critical that the organization’s board of directors, CEO, and all subsequent levels of management support and be committed to meeting a high level of security standards and outcomes. The remaining management of the acquisition also needs to be on board with the security commitment, and both organizations should make sure that all employees recognize that commitment and support. If management support is not there, the work ultimately won’t get done. It can be difficult and time-consuming and without companywide recognition of its key importance, it won’t get prioritized, and it will get lost in the myriad of other things that all the teams have to do.
The issue of security can get really complicated, very quickly. Persaud says it’s smart to find industry standards and best practices that already exist and are available to everyone, “so you’re not reinventing the wheel—or more concerning, reinventing the wheel poorly.”
Where to look for those industry standards will vary, depending on the technology stack that needs to be secured. “If you are interested in securing a web application,” says Persaud, “then starting with the OWASP Top Ten list is a good place to start. If you are selling a cloud offer or cloud service, then look at the Cloud Security Alliance’s Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) or the Cisco Cloud Controls Framework.”
One way to think of it, Persaud says, is that there are a variety of security frameworks certain customers will need a company to adhere to before they can use their solutions. Think frameworks like FedRAMP, SOC-2, Common Criteria, or FIPS.
“You can align your product security work to those frameworks as a baseline and then build on top of them to make technology more resilient.” It’s a great place to start.
It’s essential that an organization be very clear on what it wants to accomplish when it comes to ensuring security of an acquisition’s solutions and infrastructure. This will help it avoid “trying to boil the whole ocean,” says Persaud.
Persaud and his team talk about working up to security fitness the way a runner would start with a 5K and work up to an Ironman competition. “You take progressive steps towards improving,” he says. “You’re very explicit about what milestones of improvement you’ll encounter on your journey of good security.”
Persaud says Cisco is uniquely positioned to help organizations maintain security standards when acquiring other companies. He points to three critical differentiators.
“The level of visibility and support that we have for security at Cisco, starts with our board of directors and our CEO, and then throughout the organization,” says Persaud. “This is a very special and unique situation that allows us to do a lot of impactful work from a security perspective,”
Cisco has long been adamant about security that’s built in from the ground up and not bolted on as an afterthought. It’s the reason the CSDL exists, as well as the Cisco Security & Trust Organization and the many, many teams that work every day to infuse security and privacy awareness into every product, service, and solution—including the technology and infrastructure of newly acquired companies.
Once Persaud’s team has identified and assessed the security risks of an acquisition, his and other teams go about helping the acquisition address and mitigate those risks. Cisco provides a set of common building blocks or tools that teams can use to improve the security posture of an acquisition.
“We have secure libraries that teams can integrate into their code base to help them do certain things securely, so that the individual teams don’t have to implement that security functionality from scratch,” says Persaud. “And Cisco produces certain pieces of hardware that can be leveraged across our product lines, such as secure boot and secure storage.”
“Cisco’s operations stack also has various services acquisitions can use,” says Persaud. “An example of this comes from our Security Vulnerability and Incident Command team (SVIC). They provide logging capabilities that cloud offers at Cisco can leverage to do centralized logging, and then monitor those logs. SVIC also offers a security vulnerability scanning service so individual teams don’t have to do it independently.”
Another critical building block is Persaud’s team and their expertise. They act as a valuable resource that teams can consult when they want to build a new feature securely or improve the security of an existing feature.
Persaud concludes, “Cisco has an extremely strong and active security community where teams can ask questions, gain insights, give guidance, troubleshoot issues, share ideas and technology, and discuss emerging security topics. The community is committed to helping others instead of competing against each other. Members have the mindset of enriching the overall approach to security at Cisco and learning from any source they can to make things continually better.
Managing Cybersecurity Risk in M&A
Demonstrating Trust and Transparency in Mergers and Acquisitions
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Whether or not you’ve heard the term “doxxing” before, you’re probably familiar with the problem it names: collecting personal information about someone online to track down and reveal their real-life identity. The motivations for doxxing are many, and mostly malicious: for some doxxers, the goal in tracking someone is identity theft. For others, it’s part of a pattern of stalking or online harassment to intimidate, silence or punish their victim – and overwhelmingly, victims are youth and young adults, women, and LGBTQ+ people. The truth is, most of us have information online that we don’t realize can put us at risk, and that’s why I’ve written this series: to inform readers about how doxxing happens, and how you can protect yourself from this very real and growing problem by doxxing yourself.
In computer security, we talk about the idea of a “security mindset”: understanding how someone with bad intentions would cause harm, and being able to think like they would to find weak spots. In this series, you will learn by doing. By understanding the tools and methods used by those with ill intent, you’ll be better prepared to keep yourself safe and your information secure.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to follow along and find out everything the internet knows about… you!
This series will provide simple steps for you to follow as you begin your investigation. Along the way, as you get familiar with the tools and tactics of internet sleuths, you’ll get a better idea of your current internet footprint as well as know what tracks you leave in the future. Our process will be split into three main sections:
Information is power. And in the case of doxxing, most people don’t realize how much of their power they’re giving up! My goal in this series is to demystify the methods used for doxxing, so in the spirit of “showing my work,” here are some of the best resources and collected checklists I referenced when planning these exercises, along with how to best use each:
If this looks like a whole lot of homework… don’t worry! We’ll cover most of the core tools and tips mentioned in these resources through the course of this series, and we’ll revisit these links at the end of the series when you’ve gotten more context on what they cover. In the next article, we’ll take on the review step of our process, getting a holistic inventory of what personal information is currently available online so you can prioritize the most important fixes. See you soon!
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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!
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!”
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.
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.”
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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Ransomware is one of the most dangerous threats organizations face today, so it’s no wonder that Cisco Talos Incident Response named it the top threat of the year in 2021. These attacks continue to grow and become more advanced, with ransomware attacks growing by 13% over 2021 and a whopping 79% over 2020 so far this year (see Figure 1 below).1 Stopping ransomware attacks isn’t easy either, as adversaries continue to change their techniques and attacks become increasingly sophisticated.
Fortunately, Cisco Secure Endpoint defends your organization from ransomware by delivering security outcomes that enable you to radically simplify your security, maximize your security operations, and achieve peace of mind. Let’s dive deeper into each of these areas to better understand how Secure Endpoint can help your organization defend against ransomware attacks.
Cybersecurity has become increasingly complex due to the numerous security solutions deployed by organizations today. These disparate point-products increase complexity while creating security gaps because they require additional management overhead and typically don’t communicate with each other. This increases the burden on security operations teams since they must spend time managing these different solutions and filling in the gaps between tools rather than using their time to investigate and respond to threats
Cisco takes a very different approach to cybersecurity by looking at ransomware endpoint protection holistically, as part of an integrated security solution. For instance, Secure Endpoint includes built-in extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities from the Cisco SecureX platform that centralizes visibility in a single console, creates high-fidelity detections by correlating threats, and coordinates threat response across your entire security environment. In addition, Secure Endpoint unifies your security stack, simplifies management, and reduces agent fatigue because we’ve consolidated endpoint protection, cloud security, and remote access agents into a single agent.
Learn more about how Secure Endpoint helps you simplify your security while defending your organization from ransomware attacks by watching this video:
One of the common themes we’ve heard from our customers is that their security operations teams are frequently overstretched. The ongoing cybersecurity skills shortage means that security teams have to do more with less and a vast number of security tools to manage along with inefficient security operations processes, often leading to burned-out security teams.
Cisco addresses these challenges by allowing you to get the most out of your security operations. For example, you can accelerate investigation and incident response with valuable vulnerability context since we’ve integrated risk-based vulnerability management from Kenna Security into Secure Endpoint. Moreover, Secure Endpoint includes advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities via Orbital Advanced Search and built-in XDR from SecureX that enable you to rapidly detect, respond to, and contain ransomware attacks. Lastly, you can get the security expertise you need with proactive threat hunting from SecureX Threat Hunting, which uses an analyst-centric process to quickly spot hidden ransomware.
Check out how Secure Endpoint helps you maximize your security operations while defending your organization from ransomware attacks by watching this video:
Keeping up with the latest ransomware attacks can seem like an impossible challenge due to Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) kits which make it simple and lucrative to target organizations with ransomware and the evolving threat landscape, where attackers are continuously changing their methods to evade detection.
Cisco helps you stay ahead of the newest ransomware attacks and gives you the peace of mind you deserve by taking a comprehensive approach to ransomware endpoint protection. This means ensuring that you never have to go it alone with always-on security operations from Cisco Secure Endpoint Pro, a managed service that uses a team of Cisco security experts to perform the heavy lifting of securing your endpoints. It also includes offering advanced EDR and integrated XDR capabilities such as Orbital and SecureX to speed detection and response, simplify investigations, and quickly contain ransomware attacks before it’s too late. Finally, Secure Endpoint prevents initial ransomware infections with multifaceted prevention techniques such as machine learning, exploit prevention, and behavioral protection as well as actionable threat intelligence from the Cisco Talos research team.
Learn more about how Secure Endpoint helps you achieve peace of mind while defending your organization from ransomware attacks by watching this video:
All these capabilities in Cisco Secure Endpoint enable you to defend against ransomware attacks from compromising your endpoints while ensuring you stay resilient against threats. For more information on how Secure Endpoint can defend your organization from ransomware attacks, please watch the Cisco Secure Endpoint Ransomware Series.
1 BlackFog The State of Ransomware in 2022: https://www.blackfog.com/the-state-of-ransomware-in-2022
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Explore the nature of vulnerabilities in this episode of ThreatWise TV.
It’s shaping up to be another big year for vulnerability disclosure. Already the number of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) disclosed has crossed 18,000 and it’s on track to make this another record-breaking year.
With new CVEs being disclosed daily, it has become increasingly difficult for security teams to stay abreast of the latest risks, let alone quickly determine which ones apply to their network environment. From those, prioritizing which CVEs to patch first adds an additional wrinkle to the process.
If this wasn’t challenging enough, a curve ball that’s often lobbed at security teams are the “breaking news” vulnerabilities— vulnerabilities picked up by the security media, often with much fanfare. The stories surrounding these high-profile vulnerabilities generally carry an implied threat that the CVE in question will throw the doors wide open to attackers if not addressed immediately. What security team hasn’t had someone from the C-suite share an article they’ve read, asking “are we protected from this?”
On the surface, CVEs that appear severe enough to garner media attention do seem like a good place to start when addressing vulnerabilities in your environment. But vulnerabilities are complicated, and what a security researcher manages to do within a controlled environment doesn’t always translate into real-world attacks. In fact, most disclosed vulnerabilities never see active exploitation. And of those that do, not every vulnerability ends up becoming a tool in an attacker’s arsenal. Bad actors generally follow the path of least resistance when they compromise a network, relying on tested exploits long before trying something new and unproven.
This begs the question: how much overlap is there between the most talked about vulnerabilities and those that are widely used in attacks? Moreover, if media attention isn’t a reliable indicator, what else might predict if a vulnerability will be used in an attack?
To answer these questions, we used intelligence tools available from Cisco’s Kenna Security risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) software. In particular, Kenna.VI+ consolidates a variety of vulnerability intelligence, where a CVE ID lookup can pull back a wealth of information. In addition to this, Kenna.VI+ includes an API that brings in an additional layer of external threat intelligence, enabling further analysis.
We started with a direct comparison of Successful Exploitations and Chatter Count from within Kenna.VI+. The former is a full count of confirmed exploits within the dataset, while the latter is a count of mentions in the news, social media, various forums, and the dark web.
Our first pass at the data included a comparison of the top 50 CVEs in both Successful Exploitations and Chatter Count. However, there were only two CVEs that overlapped. The data showed that many of the top exploited CVEs were old and predated the data in Chatter Count. We quickly decided that this wasn’t a fair comparison.
To get a better look at more relevant CVEs, we limited the dataset to a range of 10 years. Unfortunately, this did not do much to improve things—only three CVEs showed up in both lists.
A more effective approach was to look at CVEs that we know are actively being exploited. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) happens to maintain such a list. The Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog is considered an authoritative compilation of vulnerabilities identified as being actively exploited in the wild.
Running the KEV catalog though Kenna.VI+ resulted in six CVEs that appeared in the top 50 for both lists, with a single overlap in the top 10. This leads us to conclude that the vulnerabilities with the most discussion are not the same as those being actively exploited in the majority of cases.
| CVE | Brief description | |
| 1 | CVE-2017-9841 | PHPUnit vulnerability (used to target popular CMSes) |
| 2 | CVE-2021-44228 | Log4j vulnerability |
| 3 | CVE-2019-0703 | Windows SMB information disclosure vulnerability |
| 4 | CVE-2014-0160 | Heartbleed vulnerability |
| 5 | CVE-2017-9805 | REST plugin in Apache Struts vulnerability |
| 6 | CVE-2017-11882 | Microsoft Office memory corruption vulnerability |
| 7 | CVE-2017-5638 | Apache Struts vulnerability (used in Equifax breach) |
| 8 | CVE-2012-1823 | 10-year-old PHP vulnerability |
| 9 | CVE-2017-0144 | EternalBlue vulnerability |
| 10 | CVE-2018-11776 | Apache Struts RCE vulnerability |
| CVE | Brief description | |
| 1 | CVE-2021-26855 | Microsoft Exchange vulnerability (used in Hafnium attacks) |
| 2 | CVE-2021-40444 | Microsoft MSHTML RCE vulnerability |
| 3 | CVE-2021-26084 | Confluence Server and Data Center vulnerability |
| 4 | CVE-2021-27065 | Microsoft Exchange vulnerability (used in Hafnium attacks) |
| 5 | CVE-2021-34473 | Microsoft Exchange vulnerability (used in Hafnium attacks) |
| 6 | CVE-2021-26858 | Microsoft Exchange vulnerability (used in Hafnium attacks) |
| 7 | CVE-2021-44228 | Log4j vulnerability |
| 8 | CVE-2021-34527 | One of the PrintNightmare vulnerabilities |
| 9 | CVE-2021-41773 | Apache HTTP Server vulnerability |
| 10 | CVE-2021-31207 | One of the ProxyShell vulnerabilities |
Despite the lack of overlap, there are many well-known vulnerabilities at the top of both lists. Heartbleed and EternalBlue appear on the top 10 exploited list, while Hafnium, PrintNightmare, and ProxyShell make the top 10 most talked about CVEs.
The Log4j vulnerability is the only CVE that appears in both lists. This isn’t surprising considering the ubiquity of Log4j in modern software. It’s the second-most exploited vulnerability—far outpacing the CVEs directly below it. This, coupled with its appearance in the chatter list, puts it in a class of its own. In a brief period, it’s managed to outpace older CVEs that are arguably just as well known.
The CVE that recorded the most successful exploitations is a five-year-old vulnerability in PHPUnit. This is a popular unit-testing framework that’s used by many CMSes, such as Drupal, WordPress, MediaWiki, and Moodle.
Since many websites are built with these tools, this exploit can be a handy vector for gaining initial access to unpatched webservers. This also lines up with research we conducted last year, where this vulnerability was one of the most common Snort detections seen by Cisco Secure Firewall.
All four of the Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities used in the Hafnium attacks appear in the most talked about list of CVEs. However, even when you add all four of these CVEs together, they still don’t come anywhere close to the counts seen in the top exploited CVEs.
If media attention is not a good predictor of use for exploitation, then what are the alternatives?
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is a well-known framework for gauging the severity of vulnerabilities. We looked for CVEs from the KEV catalog that were ranked as “critical”—9.0 and above in the CVSSv3 specification. Examining the entire KEV catalog, 28% of the CVEs have a score of 9.0 or higher. Of the top 50 successfully exploited, 38% had such scores.
This is an improvement, but the CVSSv3 specification was released in 2015. Many CVEs in the KEV catalog predate this—19% of the entire catalog and 28% of the top 50—and have no score.
Using the previous CVSS specification does fill this gap—36% overall and 52% of the top 50 score 9.0 or higher. However, the older CVSS specification comes with its share of issues as well.
Another indicator worth exploring is remote control execution (RCE). A vulnerability with RCE grants an attacker the ability to access and control a vulnerable system from anywhere. It turns out that 45% of the CVEs in our dataset allow for RCE, and 66% of the top 50, making it the most worthwhile indicator analyzed.
Let’s summarize how we’ve honed our approach to determine if media attention and exploitation line up:
| Data set | Exploitation and Chatter lists | Number of CVEs |
| All CVEs | Appears in both top 50 | 2 |
| Appears in both top 50 (last 10 years) | 3 | |
| KEV Catalog | Appears in both top 50 | 6 |
| Appears in both top 10 | 1 |
And here’s a summary of our look at other indicators:
| KEV Catalog | Top 50 exploited | |
| CVSSv3 (9.0+) | 28% | 38% |
| CVSS (9.0+) | 36% | 52% |
| Allows for RCE | 45% | 66% |
All of this analysis provides a clear answer to our original question—the most regularly exploited CVEs aren’t the most talked about. Additional work highlights that monitoring variables like RCE can help with prioritization.
For illustrative purposes we’ve only looked at a few indicators that could be used to prioritize CVEs. While some did better than others, we don’t recommend relying on a single variable in making decisions about vulnerability management. Creating an approach that folds in multiple indicators is a far better strategy when it comes to real-world application of this data. And while our findings here speak to the larger picture, every network is different.
Regardless of which list they appear on, be it Successful Exploitations or Chatter Count, it’s important to point out that all these vulnerabilities are serious. Just because Hafnium has more talk than Heartbleed doesn’t make it any less dangerous if you have assets that are vulnerable to it. The fact is that while CVEs with more talk didn’t make the top of the exploitation list, they still managed to rack up tens of thousands of successful exploitations.
It’s important to know how to prioritize security updates, fixing those that expose you to the most risk as soon as possible. From our perspective, here are some basic elements in the Cisco Secure portfolio that can help.
Kenna Security, a pioneer in risk-based vulnerability management, relies on threat intel and prioritization to keep security and IT teams focused on risks. Using data science, Kenna processes and analyzes 18+ threat and exploit intelligence feeds, and 12.7+ billion managed vulnerabilities to give you an accurate view of your company’s risk. With our risk scoring and remediation intelligence, you get the info you need to make truly data-driven remediation decisions.
To responsibly protect a network, it’s important to monitor all assets that connect to it and ensure they’re kept up to date. Duo Device Trust can check the patch level of devices for you before they’re granted access to connect to corporate applications or sensitive data. You can even block access and enable self-remediation for devices that are found to be non-compliant.
How about remote workers? By leveraging the Network Visibility Module in Cisco Secure Client as a telemetry source, Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics can capture endpoint-specific user and device context to supply visibility into remote worker endpoint status. This can bolster an organization’s security posture by providing visibility on remote employees that are running software versions with vulnerabilities that need patching.
Lastly, for some “lateral thinking” about vulnerability management, take a look at this short video of one of our Advisory CISOs, Wolfgang Goerlich. Especially if you’re a fan of the music of the 1920s…
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We’ve been talking a lot about security resilience recently, and for good reason. It’s clear the only way businesses can operate in today’s hybrid world is by taking bold steps to increase visibility, awareness, and integration across their systems. All while maintaining a singular goal of becoming more resilient in the face of evolving threats. But that doesn’t just mean expanding the scope of your security stack. It also means examining the resilience of other pillars of your business, like operations, organizational structure, financial processes, and supply chain functions.
If threats do compromise your business, time is of the essence when it comes to detection, response, and recovery. The longer an organization is unable to operate normally, the more at risk it becomes for damaging financial losses. As Diana Kelley, CSO and CISO at Cybrize notes, “it’s not about giving up, it’s about being better prepared.” Financial and security resilience go together, you can’t have one without the other and both are incredibly important for businesses of all sizes.
While recovering from an attack is important for maintaining resilience, a key feature of strong operational resilience is a business’s ability to operate through adverse conditions, not just recover well after the fact. Trina Ford, SVP and CISO at AEG, notes the importance of “preparedness so that your business can continue to thrive” while your security team addresses threats.
It also relies heavily upon strong staffing models because people are a critical part of any business’s day-to-day operations. What happens when someone is out sick, or is unable to access the necessary tools to do their job? Operational resilience means having a plan in place to be prepared for these situations.
In this video, CISOs and other security professionals explain what operational resilience means to them and why it’s a necessary component of overall security resilience:
If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that supply chains are fragile. But there are ways to prepare for disruption, such as minimizing negative outcomes like production delays, infrastructure weaknesses, and increasingly complex logistics. When it comes to security resilience, supply chains are important because they expand the attack surface to any third party in your network. Oftentimes, this is where businesses have the lowest visibility, making it hard to detect and respond to threats. Supply chain resilience means preparing for these challenges before they cause real damage and having contingency plans in place.
According to Helen Patton, CISO of the SBG, “security is a risk business”. We couldn’t agree more. In the context of organizational resilience, this means dedicating resources to the areas of the business that are creating the most value and protecting those to minimize the risk of damage from potential threats.
With hybrid work here to stay, the threat landscape is expanding quickly, and security teams are working constantly to stay up to date on the latest attacks. But defending against everything all the time is impossible, so it’s necessary to make informed decisions about how to dedicate resources efficiently. The goal is to maximize flexibility and agility to enable security teams to act confidently when, not if, a threat lands.
Avoiding cyberattacks 100% of the time is impossible, but by ensuring the integrity of each part of your business, you can address threats confidently and emerge stronger. Investing in security resilience will strengthen your business in each of these areas, and help you better prepare for the challenges ahead.
Learn more about how Cisco Secure can help you at any step of the journey.
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Just like the myriad expanding galaxies seen in the latest images from the James Webb space telescope, the cybersecurity landscape consists of a growing number of security technology vendors, each with the goal of addressing the continually evolving threats faced by customers today. In order to be effective, cybersecurity tools have to be collaborative—be it sharing relevant threat intelligence, device & user insights, acting on detection and remediation workflows, and more.
We at Cisco Secure have embraced this concept for a while now with our continually growing ecosystem of multi-vendor technology integrations. At the RSA Conference 2022 earlier this year, Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration, spoke of how the ‘cybersecurity poverty line’ is widening and how malicious actors are taking advantage of this gaping hole to unleash persistent attacks. It is imperative that cybersecurity vendors interact with and collaborate with each other to lower this gap. To do this, security vendors must adopt open ecosystems of APIs to easily integrate with each other to provide effective ways for mutual customers to defend and react to cybersecurity attacks.
Like in prior years, this fiscal year 2022 saw us growing to include new ecosystem partners and integrations. With 22 new partners and 51 new integrations in our ecosystem, Cisco Secure Technical Alliance (CSTA) now boasts over 450 integrations, including technical integrations with Cisco Duo and Cisco Kenna. This allows our mutual customers the freedom to implement the cybersecurity tools of their choice with the knowledge that these tools can integrate with each other if they need to, thus realizing a better return on investment in their cybersecurity spending and improving cybersecurity posture.
In this annual round-up of our ecosystem, we congratulate our new partners in CSTA and existing partners as well, who have either created new integrations across our portfolio or augmented existing ones. For more details on each partner integration in this announcement, please read through the individual partner highlights below.
Happy integrating!
The AlienApp for Cisco Secure Endpoint enables you to automate threat detection and response activities between USM Anywhere and Cisco Secure Endpoint. It also enhances the threat response capabilities of USM Anywhere by providing orchestration and response actions to isolate or un-isolate hosts based on risks identified in USM Anywhere. In addition, it allows you to collect hourly events from Cisco Secure Endpoint through the USM Anywhere Job Scheduler. Read more here.
AttackIQ automates the evaluation of Cisco Secure Endpoint against the tactic categories as outlined by MITRE ATT&CK. The AttackIQ and Cisco partnership and technical integration enables organizations to validate that the Cisco Secure Endpoint is deployed correctly and configured optimally, ensuring protection for your endpoints against the latest threats. Read more here.
With Certego Tactical Response for Cisco Secure Endpoint, monitored endpoints are monitored by the Certego PanOptikon SOAR platform. When Certego IRT detects malicious activities on a specific host in the customer’s network, it can isolate compromised hosts to block the attack, even without requiring the user to access the Cisco Secure Endpoint Console. Read more about the Certego here.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is now certified for the ServiceNow ITSM San Diego release. The Cisco Secure Endpoint App on ServiceNow provides users with the ability to integrate event data from the Cisco Secure Endpoint into ServiceNow by creating ITSM incidents. The app automates the collection of events from Cisco Secure Endpoint and groups them into single incidents. Read more here.
FAMOC manage from Techstep, a Gartner-recognized MMS provider, is an MDM designed to give IT a complete view and absolute control over mobile devices used by the workforce, so that people can work more effectively and securely. With the Cisco Security Connector for iOS integration, FAMOC MDM extends its enterprise mobility management with an extra layer of network security and traffic analysis tool, giving IT admins tools to make actionable decisions and design access control policies. Read more here.
Elastic Security now supports event ingestion from Cisco Umbrella, providing visibility into user activity and attempts to access potentially malicious domains. This new integration supports Umbrella proxy, cloud firewall, IP, and DNS logs. This integration enables security analysts to detect threats and visualize Cisco Umbrella data, and also correlate Umbrella events with other data sources including endpoint, cloud, and network. This integration expands on Elastic’s on-going expansion of Cisco integrations including ASA, Nexus, Meraki, Duo and Secure Firewall Threat Defense. Read more here.
FortiSIEM brings together visibility, correlation, automated response, and remediation in a single, scalable solution. It reduces the complexity of managing network and security operations to effectively free resources, improve breach detection, and even prevent breaches. Read more here.
Hunters ingests Cisco Umbrella log and alert information into our SOC Platform; the Platform then correlates that information with all of the other (vendor agnostic) customer security telemetry, including EDR, Identity and Cloud/Network log data, in the customer’s infrastructure to synthesize and detect incidents with a higher fidelity than any single tool alone can produce. Read more here.
LearnSafe equips school leaders (K-12) with evidence-based information to better understand which students are exhibiting behavioral issues and in need of help based on what they are using, saying, and doing on the school-owned computer. With Cisco Umbrella, LearnSafe administrators are able to block access to domains their students should not be accessing. Read more here.
The Cisco Umbrella solution for Microsoft Azure Sentinel is now live! This integration enables your customers to ingest Cisco Umbrella events stored in Amazon S3 into Microsoft Sentinel using the Amazon S3 REST API. Read more here.
Sumo Logic’s cloud-native collector supports automatic ingestion of logs from Cisco Umbrella’s hosted AWS S3 buckets. Data collected from Umbrella can then be routed to Sumo’s Cloud SIEM, where it is then automatically normalized and applied to our rule’s engine. Several built-in rules for Umbrella have been created that, when triggered, will generate security signals in the platform. These and other security signals are then clustered together based on related entities (IP, email, domain name, URL, etc.) to create insights for review by the SOC. Read more here.
The Secure Firewall team and Alkira have validated Secure Firewall (Virtual) Version 7.1 to run on Alkira’s cloud network as-a-service (CNaaS) platform. The solution offers on-demand hybrid and multi-cloud connectivity, integrated network and security services, end-to-end visibility, controls and governance. Read more here.
The Secure Firewall team has validated Cyware’s STIX 1.2 threat intelligence feed for interoperability with Secure Firewall’s Threat Intelligence Director. Customers can quickly operationalize the inbound data to protect the network from the latest threats. Read more here.
Dragos protects critical infrastructure and has joined the CSTA program. Dragos inventories assets, determines risk and vulnerabilities and generates firewall policy objects that administrators can apply to their Cisco Secure Firewall deployment through its REST API. Read more here.
The Secure Firewall team and Equinix have validated Secure Firewall (Virtual) to run on Equinix’s Network Edge as a Service platform. Equinix Fabric allows you to connect digital infrastructure and services on demand via secure, software-defined interconnection (Ecosystem). Read more here.
Fastvue has joined the CSTA program. The Fastvue Site Clean engine intelligently interprets Cisco Secure Firewall log data so that non-technical employees can easily see what people are actually doing online. The data use to keep companies compliant with workplace and school policies. Read more here.
Alef Nula has developed a new integration with ISE. The Alef Nula Identity Bridge consumes identity updates published by pxGrid and serves them to ASA firewalls using the CDA/Radius protocol. Using pxGrid v2.0, it replaces unsupported Cisco CDA and allows ASA firewalls to become an identity consumer of ISE context. It can read the full identity database and can update registered ASA firewalls in Full Download mode. Read more here.
Forescout’s pxGrid Plugin integrates with existing Cisco ISE deployments so that you can benefit from Forescout visibility and assessment for policy decisions, while continuing to use ISE as an enforcement point. The pxGrid Plugin enables Forescout platform policies to detect ISE-related properties on endpoints, and to apply Cisco ISE ANC policies, including policies that assign Security Groups to devices. Read more here.
FortiManager provides automation-driven centralized management of Fortinet devices from a single console, enabling full administration and visibility of your network devices through streamlined provisioning and innovative automation tools. FortiManager dynamically collects updates from Cisco ISE with pxGrid and forwards them to FortiGate using the Fortinet Single Sign On (FSSO) protocol. This enables the use of session information collected by Cisco ISE to be leveraged in FortiOS security policies. Read more here.
Radiflow provides OT ICS policy creation and enforcement with the Radiflow iSID IDS. They recently completed a new integration with ISE leveraging pxGrid. With this integration Cisco ISE receives enriched data of OT devices from Radiflow iSID and will process it according to the profiles and policies which have been configured. Enriching ISE with OT specific insights available with iSID’s DPI engine enables better decision making within ISE by providing additional context to categorize devices by their type/function within the OT environment. Read more here.
XTENDISE is a simple web application connected to Cisco ISE. It is designed for administrators, helpdesk, operators or anyone who needs to work with ISE and helps them with everyday routine tasks related to 802.1X without the need to train them in Cisco ISE. XTENDISE saves administrators’ time, prevents errors and increases network security. Read more here.
The Cisco Secure Malware Analytics Add-On for Splunk leverages the Threat Grid API to enrich events within Splunk. The add-on is now updated for Splunk 8 and is available on Splunkbase. Read more here.
Censys now has an integration with SecureX threat response, which returns Sightings of IP and IPv6 Observables (IOCs) in an investigation. Read more about the Censys relay module here.
The new Exabeam integration empowers users to investigate an observable and determine if it is contained in a log message stored in Exabeam Fusion SIEM Data Lake. It provides users with the date and time the observable was seen in the log, the forwarder that sent the log, and the raw log messages. When you pivot into Exabeam and search for an observable in all the log messages, the results of the search are displayed in the Exabeam UI. This integration allows you to query IPv4, IPv6, SHA-1, SHA-256, MD5, domain, URL, file path, user and email data types and it returns sightings of an observable from each log message. Read more here.
The LogRhythm integration empowers users to investigate an observable and determine if it is contained in an event stored in LogRhythm. It provides users with the date and time the observable was seen in the event and the raw event data. This integration allows you to query IPv4 and IPv6 data types and it returns sightings of an observable from each event. Read more here.
A proof-of-concept integration with RSA NetWitness SIEM was built for the RSAC SOC and Black Hat NOCs. The SecureX Concrete Relay implementation using NetWitness as a third-party Cyber Threat Intelligence service provider. The Relay itself is just a simple application written in Python that can be easily packaged and deployed. Read more here.
Cisco SecureX threat response integration with SecOps is now certified for the ServiceNow San Diego release. The module allows ServiceNow SecOps to leverage the Verdicts, Refer and Response capabilities provided by SecureX threat response to assist the security analyst in their investigation workflow. Read more here.
The Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM integration provides security analysts with enhanced visibility across the enterprise to thoroughly understand the impact and context of an attack. Streamlined workflows automatically triage alerts to maximize security analyst efficiency and focus. This integration indicates to users that the observable in an investigation is contained in an insight and/or signal within Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM. It allows you to query IPv4, IPv6, SHA-1, SHA-256, MD5, domain, and URL data types. It also returns sightings and indicators of an observable from each insight and signal retrieved from Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM. Read more here.
APIVoid provides JSON APIs useful for cyber threat analysis, threat detection and threat prevention. The following APIVoid atomic actions for SecureX Orchestration Workflows are now available: Get Domain Reputation, Get IP Reputation, Get URL Reputation, Get URL Status. Access the workflows here.
Censys is a company that allows users to discover the devices, networks, and infrastructure on the Internet and monitor how it changes over time. SecureX orchestration atomic actions for Censys is now available and includes: Basic Search. Access the workflows here.
This integration radically reduces the time and resources enterprises spend to detect, investigate, and remediate ransomware threats to data. It empowers SecOps, ITOps and NetOps with visibility and automation to collaborate in countering ransomware — regardless of whether data resides on-premises or in the cloud — delivering enterprise-wide confidence in deterring, detecting, and recovering fast from cyberattacks. Cohesity’s next-gen data management enhances Cisco SecureX by adding visibility and context to data, complementing Cisco’s existing capabilities for networks, endpoints, clouds, and apps. Read more here.
SecureX orchestration atomic actions for workflows are now available for Farsight Security DNSDB. They include various items like DKIM key inspections, DNS Resource Records and more. Access the workflows here.
SecureX orchestration workflows for Fortinet FortiGate are now available: Block URL, IP and Domain Threat Containment. Access the workflows here.
SecureX orchestration workflows for Jamf Pro include: Lock Computer, Lock Mobile Device. Access the workflows here.
SecureX orchestration workflows for Palo Alto Networks Panorama are now available: Block URL, IP, Domain Threat Containment. Access the workflows here.
A new Orchestration action provides top MacOS IR Indicators to ServiceNow This workflow runs multiple Orbital queries on the endpoint provided to look for top incident response indicators of compromise. The results are then posted to a ServiceNow incident. Supported observables: ip, mac_address, amp_computer_guid, hostname. Access the workflow here.
Shodan is a database of billions of publicly available IP addresses, and it’s used by security experts to analyze network security. SecureX orchestration atomic actions for Shodan include: Basic Search. Access the workflows here.
Earlier this year we announced SecureX Device Insights which provides comprehensive endpoint inventory in a single unified view. Endpoint searching and reporting allows you to assess device security configuration on employee-owned, contractor-owned, company owned, and IoT/OT devices—without risking business disruption. With Device Insights you can
Device insights supports the following third-party sources in its initial release: Jamf Pro, Microsoft Intune, Ivanti MobileIron and VMware Workspace ONE (formerly AirWatch).
Bitglass’ Next-Gen CASB provides data protection, threat protection, access management, and visibility, while Duo offers identity verification options like SSO and MFA. The Duo and Bitglass integration provide a synergistic solution that funnels traffic through Duo’s SSO and verifies users via its MFA so Bitglass can deliver real-time data loss prevention and granular adaptive access control. Because of Bitglass’ agentless architecture, the joint solution can secure any app, any device, anywhere. Read more about the integration here. A joint solution brief is also available here.
Cmd helps companies authenticate and manage user security in Linux production environments without slowing down teams — you don’t need to individually configure identities and devices. Cmd integrates with Duo to put 2FA checkpoints into Linux-based data centers and cloud infrastructure. The combination of Cmd and Duo enables development teams to run at the modern, agile pace they are accustomed to without any security-induced slowdowns. Read more here.
Darktrace is an AI-native platform that delivers self-learning cyber defense and AI investigations and seamlessly integrates with other tools via an open and extensible architecture. Darktrace’s Security Module for Duo provides coverage over access, user sessions and platform administration within the Duo platform. Read more here.
Dashlane is a password manager that now supports Duo using Duo SSO. The integration lets IT Administrators easily deploy Duo + Dashlane and set up access policies. End users can easily access Dashlane and their passwords with SSO from Duo. Read more here.
HashiCorp Vault is an identity-based secrets and encryption management system. A secret is anything that you want to tightly control access to, such as API encryption keys, passwords, and certificates. Add another layer of protection and protect access to secrets within HashiCorp Vault with Duo Security MFA. Read more here. A recording of the Cisco Duo + HashiCorp webinar is available to view here.
Oort discovers vulnerabilities across an entire user population (or a segment of it). Trigger notifications related to behavioral anomalies or best practices, or policies not being followed. Oort integrates with Duo for identity analytics and threat detection to provide a complete picture of the user behavior and highlight any anomalous activity or identify risks. Read more here.
Perimeter 81 simplifies cyber and network security for the hybrid workforce, ensuring secure access to local networks, applications, and cloud infrastructure. Their integration with Duo provides protection for administrators and end-users who need to log in to Perimeter 81. Read more here.
Specops Software, a leading provider of password management and authentication solutions, protects businesses by securing user authentication across high-risk tasks including account unlocks and password recovery via self-service or the IT service desk. Organizations can extend Duo authentication to secure user verification across these use cases. Read about the integration here. A blog on the integration is also available here.
Sectona is a Privileged Access Management company that delivers integrated privilege management components for securing dynamic remote workforce access across on-premises or cloud workloads, endpoints, and machine-to-machine communication. Duo’s secure access multi-factor authentication can be used to ensure that each user authenticates using multiple methods (factors) while accessing Sectona Privileged Access Management. Read more here.
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Security tools are only as good as the intelligence and expertise that feeds them. We’re very fortunate to have our security technologies powered by Cisco Talos, one of the largest and most trusted threat intelligence groups in the world. Talos is comprised of highly skilled researchers, analysts, and engineers who provide industry-leading visibility, actionable intelligence, and vulnerability research to protect both our customers and the internet at large.
The Talos team serves as a crucial pillar of our innovation — alerting customers and the public to new threats and mitigation tactics, enabling us to quickly incorporate protection into our products, and stepping in to help organizations with incident response, threat hunting, compromise assessments and more. Talos can also be found securing large-scale events such as the Super Bowl, and working with government and law enforcement organizations across the globe to share intelligence.
With Cisco’s vast customer base and broad portfolio — from routers and switches to email and endpoints — Talos has visibility into worldwide telemetry. Once a threat is seen, whether it’s a phishing URL or an IP address hosting malware, detections are created and indicators of compromise are categorized and blocked across our Cisco Secure portfolio.
Talos also leverages its unique insights to help society as a whole better understand and combat the cyberattacks facing us daily. During the war in Ukraine, the group has taken on the additional task of defending over 30 critical infrastructure providers in the country by directly managing and monitoring their endpoint security.
The reality of security today is that organizations must be constantly ready to detect and contain both known and unknown threats, minimize impact, and keep business going no matter what happens in the cyber realm. In light of hybrid work, evolving network architectures, and increasingly insidious attacks, all organizations must also be prepared to rapidly recover if disaster strikes, and then emerge stronger. We refer to this as security resilience, and Talos plays a critical role in helping our customers achieve it.
For several years, our integrated, cloud-native Cisco SecureX platform has been delivering extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities and more. SecureX allows customers to aggregate, analyze, and act on intelligence from disparate sources for a coordinated response to cyber threats.
Through the SecureX platform, intelligence from Talos is combined with telemetry from our customers’ environments — including many third-party tools — to provide a more complete picture of what’s going on in the network. Additionally, built-in, automated response functionality helps to speed up and streamline mitigation. This way, potential attacks can be identified, prioritized, and remediated before they lead to major impact.
For XDR to be successful, it must not only aggregate data, but also make sense of it. Through combined insights from various resources, SecureX customers obtain the unified visibility and context needed to rapidly prioritize the right threats at the right time. With SecureX, security analysts spend up to 90 percent less time per incident.
One of Australia’s largest universities, Deakin University, needed to improve its outdated security posture and transition from ad hoc processes to a mature program. Its small security team sought an integrated solution to simplify and strengthen threat defense.
With a suite of Cisco security products integrated through SecureX, Deakin University was able to reduce the typical investigation and response time for a major threat down from over a week to just an hour. The university was also able to decrease its response time for malicious emails from an hour to as little as five minutes.
“The most important outcome that we have achieved so far is that security is now a trusted function.”
– Fadi Aljafari, Information Security and Risk Manager, Deakin University
Also in the education space, AzEduNet provides connectivity and online services to 1.5 million students and 150,000 teachers at 4,300 educational institutions in Azerbaijan. “We don’t have enough staff to monitor every entry point into our network and correlate all the information from our security solutions,” says Bahruz Ibrahimov, senior information security engineer at AzEduNet.
The organization therefore implemented Cisco SecureX to accelerate investigations and incident management, maximize operational efficiency with automated workflows, and decrease threat response time. With SecureX, AzEduNet has reduced its security incidents by 80 percent.
“The integration with all our Cisco Secure solutions and with other vendors saves us response and investigation time, as well as saving time for our engineers.”
– Bahruz Ibrahimov, Senior Information Security Engineer, AzEduNet
The sophistication of attackers and sheer number of threats out there today make it extremely challenging for most cybersecurity teams to effectively stay on top of alerts and recognize when something requires their immediate attention. According to a survey by ESG, 81 percent of organizations say their security operations have been affected by the cybersecurity skills shortage.
That’s why Talos employs hundreds of researchers around the globe — and around the clock — to collect and analyze massive amounts of threat data. The group uses the latest in machine learning logic and custom algorithms to distill the data into manageable, actionable intelligence.
“Make no mistake, this is a battle,” said Nick Biasini, head of outreach for Cisco Talos, who oversees a team of global threat hunters. “In order to keep up with the adversaries, you really need a deep technical understanding of how these threats are constructed and how the malware operates to quickly identify how it’s changing and evolving. Offense is easy, defense is hard.”
Earlier this year, we unveiled our strategic vision for the Cisco Security Cloud to deliver end-to-end security across hybrid, multicloud environments. Talos will continue to play a pivotal role in our technology as we execute on this vision. In addition to driving protection in our products, Talos also offers more customized and hands-on expertise to customers when needed.
Cisco Talos Incident Response provides a full suite of proactive and emergency services to help organizations prepare for, respond to, and recover from a breach — 24 hours a day. Additionally, the recently released Talos Intel on Demand service delivers custom research unique to your organization, as well as direct access to Talos security analysts for increased awareness and confidence.
Visit our dedicated Cisco Talos web page to learn more about the group and the resources it offers to help keep global organizations cyber resilient. Then, discover how XDR helps Security Operations Center (SOC) teams hunt for, investigate, and remediate threats.
Watch video: What it means to be a threat hunter
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Over her 25-year-plus career, Saleema Syed has seen the information security industry from a variety of vantage points, all while championing women in technology. Syed worked as director of business systems and data management for Duo Security before rising to vice president of information technology. Later, after Duo was acquired by Cisco, she transitioned to new roles within the larger organization and now heads up operations for Webex Marketing. In this position Syed brings structure across different functions of marketing including brand, events and technology while also serving as chief operating officer for Chief Marketing Officer Aruna Ravichandran.
“I fell in love with the culture, the kindness, the heart of this company,” Syed said.
Recently, she shared her passion for problem solving and inclusion with the Duo Blog, along with the advice she gives mentees navigating their own career paths.
Saleema Syed: I like chaos and I love putting a method to the madness. With marketing we have to react to the market, react to the business, react internally. What energizes me is there’s never a dull day and there is always this ability to bring some overall end to end process.
I love running towards a burning car and figuring out how to put it out. I love change. I know change is the only constant and rather than running away from it, I thrive in it. I like to look at it and ask, “What can we do to break it down and figure out what we need to do?”
My brain works in terms of boxes and flows and charts and spreadsheets so when I look at something I’m like, “Okay, what is a box? What is a process? How do I untangle it?” I like sitting in the discomfort and understanding what to do to get out of it.
Saleema Syed: There are three things I always keep in mind when I look at what I’m doing and where I want to be. One is, at the core of it, does it fill my cup of empathy and allow me to be true to who I am in how I treat people or how I build a team?
The second thing is, will I have the opportunity to influence and impact the people on the team or my family? How do I show myself to my daughter who is growing and seeing how to become who she is as a career person?
The third thing is, is it something new and am I learning something? Continuous learning is a huge part of who I am, so that drives me to get out of my comfort zone constantly.
When I’m changing jobs people usually say, “You’ve set up this team, you’re so comfortable. Now all you have to do is sit back and execute.” And my answer is, “That’s exactly why I am moving.”
If I am comfortable I’m not learning, and I don’t know if I’m adding any more value than I’ve set up. That means it’s time for me to move on and elevate somebody. What I’m doing is sending the elevator down to somebody on the team to grow.
That’s why I’ve had people who work for me for many years follow me through multiple organizations, which as a leader has been my pinnacle of what I call my success. Success is not my role; it is how many people I have impacted and influenced.
Saleema Syed: I keep going back to Duo because working at that organization and meeting those people defined me as a human being. One of the strategic pillars of that organization is to be kinder than necessary.
However complicated the work challenges are, those around me must be aligned with what my integral values are and who I am. They have to have empathy and kindness in their heart. If that is not there, no matter how much I love solving challenges and know I can solve them, I’m not going to go for it. I’ve been extremely lucky at Duo, Cisco and Webex that I’ve been around those kinds of people.
If you look at Webex, I love the core of what we are, the journey we are on, the inclusivity. We are not just selling Webex messaging or other products. At the heart of it we are looking at how we are influencing people and things around us by making sure that there is inclusivity in the collaboration tools that we are launching.
Saleema Syed: My leadership style is pretty simple: nobody works for me; people work with me. I lead with making sure that people know this is the problem you’re trying to solve, here is the context of what we are trying to do. Now, let’s figure out how we solve it. That is something that has helped my team be part of the problem solving that I love to do.
When I interview people my first questions are, “What does the job bring to you? How would this job fill your cup?” That throws people off every time. You can teach any technology, you can teach any skill set, but if you don’t have the basic passion, the attitude to be able to do this job, then everything else can just go out the door.
Saleema Syed: I have a very diverse background. I am an Indian by birth and grew up in the Middle East. When I went into engineering, finished my education and started my career, one of the things I realized was that as a woman of color, I always wanted to apply for positions that I was fully qualified for. I wanted to make sure I knew everything about the job because a very big fear was being asked a question in the interview I didn’t know. LinkedIn’s Gender Insights Report found that women apply for 20% fewer jobs than men despite similar job search behaviors. That has been a very challenging mental barrier for me to break.
Trey Boynton, who was at Duo and now she’s leading Cisco in a beautiful journey of diversity as the senior director of inclusion and collaboration strategy always said, “We have to have that bicycle lane on the road, whether it is for females, whether it is for people of color or any LGBTQIA+ community members. That is how we get people to bring that confidence in to learn, grow and then they can merge easily.”
“Passion is a part of who I am and is contributing to my growth.” – Saleema Syed
Whatever I faced as I was growing up, whether it was my dark skin, whether it was my accent, whether it was, “Oh, you’re way too passionate” has been some of the feedback that I’ve gotten. In my career if I’m told I’m way too passionate I turn that around and say, “Passion is a part of who I am and is contributing to my growth.”
Saleema Syed: Within Webex, within Cisco, I try to be part of anything that I can do in terms of giving back to the community. I’m definitely a big proponent of women in technology. In the local Dallas area I run a program by myself and go into schools and advocate for girls in STEM. Cisco is amazing in how it gives us time to volunteer. I love that educating kids is part of my journey of giving back. That’s the generation you can influence.
How do we enable children and women to be more open to technology and being part of the technology field? Let’s look at the percentage of diversity in the technology field and be aware of it. It’s not only about the diversity numbers, but are we bringing in candidates at the leadership level and giving them not just a seat at the table but a voice at the table, too?
You also have to talk about what you do and with passion and energy because if you don’t, people get intimidated. If you can influence one person who comes from an underrepresented community, imagine what you are doing, not just for that person, but for his household, for his family, for his extended community. I have a lot more to do, but as I get into the next decade of my life and my career, that is something that is a huge focus for me.
Saleema Syed: First and foremost it’s very important to spend time and understand the business and the products in whatever industry you’re going into. It is key to your growth. Especially if it’s a security industry, take time to understand the products, the technology or the function that you’re trying to get into. Contextual understanding and product understanding are extremely important.
The second piece is to keep learning. Cisco is amazing in trying to help you learn and support you financially to be able to do it. I went back and got my executive MBA four years ago. Give yourself a goal of learning a new something, whether it is a new function, new technology or new leadership skill.
The third piece is to create a spreadsheet of where you want to be in two years. Put that out there and then work back just like you would do a project plan. Work back month by month, quarter by quarter. What are the skill sets you need to learn to get there?
The last part is: Do the job you want versus the job you are in. Of course, you have to do the job you are in, but do the job you want to get to. Don’t wait for a title, don’t wait for a promotion to act. No. What do you want to be? Show that to your leaders and yourself. The title will come, money will come, everything will come, but am I doing the job that I want and enjoy and I want to get to?
To learn more about Webex, Cisco and Duo Security and how you can apply your passion, advocacy and problem solving to make a difference in cybersecurity, browse our open roles.
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Cisco Secure Social Channels
Cisco Talos has a long-standing relationship with Ukraine, so when Russia invaded the country earlier this year, things hit close to home. Cisco Talos leaders rallied together to provide cybersecurity threat hunting to vital infrastructure, humanitarian support and goods and services to employees and their families in the region.
Ashlee Benge, Amy Henderson and Sammi Seaman spearheaded initiatives to support and sustain Ukrainian employees and threat hunters working around-the-clock to prevent cyberattacks and remember the human element. Even in the midst of crisis, they’ve facilitated open communication, emphasized mental health and cultivated connection.
Given Ukraine’s unique position on the front lines of cyberwarfare, Cisco Talos has had a very close partnership with Ukraine. The threat intelligence team has worked with several partners in the country from a cyber threat perspective. That long standing connection is part of why Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been felt so deeply. “Some Ukrainian team members evacuated before the invasion, others did not,” said Amy Henderson, head of strategic planning & communications. “Our teams of threat hunters have been around-the-clock hunting in the data since the invasion. They’re stopping attacks from happening.”
Cisco Talos set up Cisco Secure Endpoint on about thirty partners’ organizations and extended the offering to critical infrastructure organizations in Ukraine such as hospitals, directly monitoring Cisco Secure Endpoint, “because their people are busy doing other things right now. They can’t sit at a screen,” Henderson said.
Lead of Strategic Business Intelligence Ashlee Benge directs the Ukraine Threat Hunting Task Unit which requires empathy, compassion and an awareness of the needs of forty-five threat hunters. Veteran threat hunters with decades of experience have volunteered to contribute to the team while other members of Cisco Talos have also volunteered their skill sets to the work. Benge values the distinct contributions of her team members and describes them as, “quite brilliant and very good at their jobs. Talos does a really good job of hiring good people, and so the worst thing that I could do is get in their way.” Getting in their way looks different for different team members which is why Benge has established trainings and consistent ways to evaluate that the needs of her team are being met.
The nature of such a demanding, on-going situation coupled with the team’s dedication can lead employees to work themselves into the ground. To combat this, leaders maintain weekly check-ins that include asking employees how they’re taking care of themselves and checking for signs of burnout. “When you have rest you’re at peak performance and can problem solve. But when you start burning out and get to be irritable and snappy, you’re not able to problem solve. Just step back. You’ll be in a much better head space,” Henderson advises.
Stepping back has meant rotating projects to level out activity levels and urgency. Leaders have also stepped in to ensure employees take time off and that when they’re away, they’re fully away. “When you’re in such a high intensity environment it takes two to three days just to come off of that. If you’re only taking a day here or day there, you’re not even scratching the surface of coming down. So I’ll suggest maybe you need to take a week and completely recharge,” Henderson says.
Team Lead of Employee Experience Sammi Seaman was heartened by Cisco’s support of Ukrainian employees including helping employees and their families out of cities and into new housing. The humanitarian focus led Seaman to ask “How else can we help? Our colleagues have had to leave their homes and they’re still trying to do work. How do I get them necessities like medicine and shampoo?”
Seaman’s empathy and collaboration within her team and with Cisco Talos leadership led to determining the highest needs including more stable internet and navigating the transport of goods directly to employees and their families through freight mail. Seaman worked with her team to ensure necessary items like medical kits could get directly to people who needed them as quickly as possible. There are also pages available coordinating housing, transportation and other forms of support.
“It’s been interesting to think about people needing medicine for various reasons and that I’m also buying Legos and castles so that the children who have been displaced have toys and things that bring them joy and allow them to be kids in this situation,” Seaman said.
As Seaman prepared more boxes to ship, an employee shared a photograph of his daughter with some of the things Seaman had sent. “I just started crying. It was such a relief.” A relief she wanted to share, leaving the boxes for a moment to connect with other team members around the positive impact of their hard work.
“Despite all of these things that are happening around us that are horrific and awful and things that shouldn’t be happening, there are still things that we can celebrate. We’re still humans who have feelings, relationships, milestones and holidays.” – Sammi Seaman
Remembering children also became important during spring holidays. Through asking employees if they celebrated Easter and if they’d like Easter baskets, she learned that many employees celebrated traditional Orthodox Ukrainian Easter and would appreciate the baskets.
Seaman’s colleague researched what people in Ukraine typically put in their Easter baskets and together they made the baskets, boxed them up and shipped them. “The baskets weren’t a necessity but were nice to remind people that despite all of these things that are happening around us that are horrific and awful and things that shouldn’t be happening, there are still things that we can celebrate. We’re still humans who have feelings, relationships, milestones and holidays.”
Outside of work, Benge competes as an Olympic weightlifter. After months of training, her first national level meet was scheduled to happen early into the war in Ukraine. She considered withdrawing given the 24/7 nature of Cisco Talos’ response. However, “only because of the support of those around me,” Benge decided to compete—while working from her phone in the warm up room between lifts. The physical movement allows Benge to manage her mental health and stress while modeling self-care for the team: “If I can’t be my own best self, then the people around me can hardly be expected to do the same.”
Self-care and mental health are so important to the team that Henderson and Benge recently joined their colleagues, Matt Olney, the director of threat intelligence and interdiction, and Strategic Communications Leader Mitch Neff on a Cisco Secure podcast about mental health. The conversation illuminated the importance of reaching out for help, utilizing support systems such as those provided by Cisco and talking to someone including a therapist.
“Using those types of resources is a valuable thing, particularly when managing very high levels of stress and anxiety that come with cybersecurity. No matter what kind of support it is that we need, it’s important to take that time and recognize that it’s valuable to invest in your own mental health,” Benge stated.
Seaman shared that because it can be hard to ask for help or delegate, when she does, she gives herself a pat on the back. She advises that especially in crisis situations it’s important to remember that while things need to get done, it’s not entirely on you to get those things done. “The leadership at Cisco Talos has really emphasized that you’re not alone. The employee assistance program has been a great resource and I’ve got a therapist that I talk to about these things and make sure that I’m taking care of myself so that I can continue to take care of others.”
The team’s bond and purpose run deep. “We care deeply about everyone that we work with. It’s okay to not be on at all times. It’s okay to feel sad and it’s okay to feel anxious. One of the things that I’ve loved about working with Cisco Talos, especially during these more difficult things, is that everybody’s got your back and they make it a safe space to share those feelings. I truly feel like the people I work with are like my family. We’re curated an environment where we can all talk about what we’re going through.”
To learn more about Cisco Talos, Cisco Secure and Duo Security and how you can apply your empathy, skills and passion to make a difference in cybersecurity, check out open roles.
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Cisco Secure Social Channels
When contemplating a career change within a different industry, it can be challenging to know where to start. As the world continues to change, many people are wondering how to transition into cybersecurity without experience. Business leaders at Cisco Secure and Duo Security who changed careers, along with recruiting professionals, provided insights for prospective candidates curious about the cybersecurity and tech industries. Learn their top 10 tips for getting a job in cybersecurity.
If passion, innovation, kindness and growth are on your list, Cisco Secure is worth checking out. When Kelly Davenport, manager of the Global Knowledge and Communities team, first connected with folks at Duo, she was “amazed at how nice and excited everyone seemed. I almost thought it seemed too good to be true. But then, when I started working here I realized everyone here really is that nice and smart and good at what they do. I was waiting for that to change, but it’s for real.”
Cisco Secure Talent Acquisition Lead Jeff Edwards shares, “Our senior level folks want fulfilling work. The work we’re doing and products we’re putting out are exciting, new and cutting edge. This is the stuff that’s going to change how we work in the future.”
For those looking to get into cybersecurity with no experience, Edwards suggests, “Pay attention to the jobs posted on cybersecurity career pages and the skills they’re asking for. That lets you know how long a process your career change may take. If you’re switching careers into tech it’s all out there to be able to discern, “Hey, where do I need to focus my efforts to put me in contention for these roles?”’
Cisco Women in Cybersecurity recently hosted a virtual session, Career Journeys Are Not Always a Straight Road – Your Journey Is Your Story, featuring CX Cloud Compliance Leader Deborah Sparma.
Sparma shared, “No matter where you are and have a new goal to break into, see what can transfer. Who knew that theater could transfer to working in a tech company? Who knew that working as a vet tech could lead me into corporate America? The variety of expertise has taught me that there is always room to grow and skills that can be transferred from one role to the next no matter how disparate they may be. For example, my experience in theater has made me a better speaker and presenter.”
Davenport, who was a journalist and librarian before making the switch to health care IT and then Duo, advises, “Figure out the core skills that you have and what job titles and words are used in other industries. Talk about the things you already know how to do, because every industry has its own jargon and that can feel like a barrier until you figure out how to translate it.” Cisco provides a list of common job titles and the experience and certifications needed for key cybersecurity roles.
She continues, “I had no idea what customer enablement was before I joined Duo. I did not know that was a job, and no one would’ve told me that. But it turns out that being a librarian, knowing how to organize things, having worked with the public, being a journalist who can write and create accurate, complex information on a deadline, and then understanding the technology of making something user centered and how people want to consume that information in different formats in different points in time, based on their needs, all of those were things that I knew and had experience in. And so, it was just discovering the opportunities that were already out there but were called something different than I knew about.”
Davenport’s advice for those wanting to enter cybersecurity: “A lot of professions want that super specialist, and we definitely have people who are those people, but I’ve seen Duo hire people from a lot of different backgrounds, and the additional perspective that they come in with and the fresh ideas is what keeps us innovative and what makes it a really fun and interesting place to work.”
She elaborates: “From a journalism background, the level of responsibility that you have as a journalist to be fair and accurate, and the ethics that you learn that are integral to that profession, were super helpful and important coming into any kind of customer-facing role where you’re used to being accountable. You have really high standards for yourself, and that translates into being able to hold those high standards for what customers expect, too.”
For journalists in particular, she says, “I would just like to give a shout out to folks in journalism who are wondering, maybe their career path is taking them in a different direction. (…) you have so many valuable skills that, if you are interested in a career in tech, there’s a lot of opportunities because of some of those things like I talked about earlier. The experience of working on deadline, that accountability and responsibility that you take and the ethics of what you do, those all translate. And so, those are all totally portable to a new context.”
Edwards states, “Start researching all the top cybersecurity companies and what products they offer and then take it another level down: What programs and software are they using? Are there different classes I need to take or certifications I need to get?”
Cisco offers top-notch cybersecurity training and security certifications. Also available are Cisco Certified CyberOps training videos and connection with those learning new cybersecurity skills through the Security Certifications Community and CyberOps Certifications Community.
Sparma highlights, “I believe a lot in teams. We all have skill sets that can complement each other no matter where we are in our career. I know I don’t know it all. I lean on the teams and people around me.”
Davenport reports, “Your experiences are going to give you a fresh perspective that’s actually really valued by the people who maybe came from that industry. Having that diversity of experiences and viewpoints is really celebrated more so here than pretty much any other place I’ve worked. My advice would be to trust that you can learn a totally new industry, and that the experiences that you’re coming with are really valuable.”
Duo Security Lead Recruiter Shannon Curran affirms, “We’ve spoken with many candidates who don’t come from the cybersecurity space.” She says that telling that story in your resume and throughout the application, interview and hiring process allows recruiters to understand why you’d be a match and that kindness goes a long way.
When starting at Duo Security, Davenport shares, “I came in pretty fresh. I knew that I was going to be doing this intensive onboarding program. We have technical trainers who we work with, so that we’re customer-ready. And so, I knew coming in that I would have a lot of support. I felt like, ‘Okay, I’m embracing the unknown and I’m going to learn a bunch of new things, but I’m going to have this great team that’s going to help me learn, is going to teach me.’ And that worked out pretty well.”
“Trust that you can learn, trust that the experiences you’re coming in with are valuable and are going to give you a fresh perspective, and that you will have the support to learn and grow, even if you’re changing industries.” —Manager of Duo Global Knowledge and Communities team Kelly Davenport
A culture of learning helps. Sparma says, “I’m always learning. Cisco especially has all the trainings out there that we can take. Invest in yourself, in learning, and don’t be afraid to ask.”
Davenport took this approach: “Because I’m a writer, I would go to our classes where we’re learning about the product. And then I would write my own summary in my own words, to describe what I was learning. I’d run that by my teacher and say, ‘Okay, am I on the right track?’ And that really helped me metabolize what I was learning and get that feedback in a way that worked for me as a learner.”
Maintaining a strong network can ease the career change process in terms of learning about the cybersecurity industry from people working in it and in terms of referrals. Marketing Specialist Julie Kramer says, “Try to find a networking partner in the company and ask for references for networking purposes. For example, if I have a friend who knows me that works at Cisco and they’re like, ‘Hey, do you mind referring me?’ I’d be happy to give them a referral.”
Sparma said, “Working in technology wasn’t even an option I considered when I started college…I broke into a new career but I had my background working in hospitals, working at the insurance company…someone knew me, knew my personality, helped me get that role… At Cisco, I had applied at other roles where I had a one-to-one fit. This one stretches me, but I could bring a lot to the table at the same time and still grow. That’s what energizes me.”
You never know how your network may come in handy throughout your career. In 2012, Edwards’ very first manager called him with one question: “Hey, do you want to come work at Cisco?”
Sparma’s first mentor “shepherded me. She took me under her wing, supported my wish to go back to school, encouraged me to get certification in something I didn’t know existed. I didn’t know what a mentor was at first, and it didn’t dawn on me until after I’d moved on in my career and traveled around the world that I realized I got there because of my first mentor. What does get difficult is everyday meetings, deliverables, timeframes — sometimes you just have to make it a point to make sure that you invest in yourself and keep that promise to yourself and keep your mentoring relationships going. I’ve had different mentors at Cisco and you can have multiple mentors along the way.” Employee Resource Organizations are another great place to find those mentors or mentor others.
“Find a mentor for support, guidance, knowledge, and motivation. Then pay it forward and mentor others. You can always bring something to the table.” —CX Cloud Compliance Leader Deborah Sparma
Sparma continues, “One of the first things they asked me to do when I started at Cisco was find a mentor. Cisco also allows people to shadow colleagues to learn what they do, network, and for knowledge transfer. We all can benefit from each other.”
To learn more about Cisco Secure and Duo Security and how you can apply your skills, passion, and experience to cybersecurity, check out our open roles.
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Cisco Secure Social Channels
In part one of our Black Hat Asia 2022 NOC blog, we discussed building the network with Meraki:
In this part two, we will discuss:
SecureX: Bringing Threat Intelligence Together by Ian Redden
In addition to the Meraki networking gear, Cisco Secure also shipped two Umbrella DNS virtual appliances to Black Hat Asia, for internal network visibility with redundancy, in addition to providing:
Cisco Secure Threat Intelligence (correlated through SecureX)
Donated Partner Threat Intelligence (correlated through SecureX)
alphaMountain.ai threat intelligence
Open-Source Threat Intelligence (correlated through SecureX)
Continued Integrations from past Black Hat events
New Integrations Created at Black Hat Asia 2022
Device type spoofing event by Jonny Noble
Overview
During the conference, a NOC Partner informed us that they received an alert from May 10 concerning an endpoint client that accessed two domains that they saw as malicious:
Client details from Partner:
Based on the user agent, the partner derived that the device type was an Apple iPhone.
SecureX analysis
Umbrella Investigate analysis
Umbrella Investigate positions both domains as low risk, both registered recently in Poland, and both hosted on the same IP:
Despite the low-risk score, the nameservers have high counts of malicious associated domains:
Targeting users in ASA, UK, and Nigeria:
Meraki analysis
Based on the time of the incident, we can trace the device’s location (based on its IP address). This is thanks to the effort we invested in mapping out the exact location of all Meraki APs, which we deployed across the convention center with an overlay of the event map covering the area of the event:
Further analysis and conclusions
The device name (LAPTOP-8MLGXXXXXX) and MAC address seen (f4:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX) both matched across the partner and Meraki, so there was no question that we were analyzing the same device.
Based on the useragent captured by the partner, the device type was an Apple iPhone. However, Meraki was reporting the Device and its OS as “Intel, Android”
A quick look up for the MAC address confirmed that the OUI (organizationally unique identifier) for f42679 was Intel Malaysia, making it unlikely that this was an Apple iPhone.
The description for the training “Web Hacking Black Belt Edition” can be seen here:
https://www.blackhat.com/asia-22/training/schedule/#web-hacking-black-belt-edition–day-25388
It is highly likely that the training content included the use of tools and techniques for spoofing the visibility of useragent or device type.
There is also a high probability that the two domains observed were used as part of the training activity, rather than this being part of a live attack.
It is clear that integrating the various Cisco technologies (Meraki wireless infrastructure, SecureX, Umbrella, Investigate) used in the investigation of this incident, together with the close partnership and collaboration of our NOC partners, positioned us where we needed to be and provided us with the tools we needed to swiftly collect the data, join the dots, make conclusions, and successfully bring the incident to closure.
Self Service with SecureX Orchestration and Slack by Matt Vander Horst
Overview
Since Meraki was a new platform for much of the NOC’s staff, we wanted to make information easier to gather and enable a certain amount of self-service. Since the Black Hat NOC uses Slack for messaging, we decided to create a Slack bot that NOC staff could use to interact with the Meraki infrastructure as well as Palo Alto Panorama using the SecureX Orchestration remote appliance. When users communicate with the bot, webhooks are sent to Cisco SecureX Orchestration to do the work on the back end and send the results back to the user.
Design
Here’s how this integration works:
Workflow #1: Handle Slash Commands
Slash commands are a special type of message built into Slack that allow users to interact with a bot. When a Slack user executes a slash command, the command and its arguments are sent to SecureX Orchestration where a workflow handles the command. The table below shows a summary of the slash commands our bot supported for Black Hat Asia 2022:
Here’s a sample of a portion of the SecureX Orchestration workflow that powers the above commands:
And here’s a sample of firewall logs as returned from the “/pan_traffic_history” command:
Workflow #2: Handle Interactivity
A more advanced form of user interaction comes in the form of Slack blocks. Instead of including a command’s arguments in the command itself, you can execute the command and Slack will present you with a form to complete, like this one for the “/update_vlan” command:
These forms are much more user friendly and allow information to be pre-populated for the user. In the example above, the user can simply select the switch to configure from a drop-down list instead of having to enter its name or serial number. When the user submits one of these forms, a webhook is sent to SecureX Orchestration to execute a workflow. The workflow takes the requested action and sends back a confirmation to the user:
Conclusion
While these two workflows only scratched the surface of what can be done with SecureX Orchestration webhooks and Slack, we now have a foundation that can be easily expanded upon going forward. We can add additional commands, new forms of interactivity, and continue to enable NOC staff to get the information they need and take necessary action. The goal of orchestration is to make life simpler, whether it is by automating our interactions with technology or making those interactions easier for the user.
Future Threat Vectors to Consider – Cloud App Discovery by Alejo Calaoagan
Since 2017 (starting in Black Hat USA – Las Vegas), Cisco Umbrella has provided DNS security to the Black Hat attendee network, added layers of traffic visibility previously not seen. Our efforts have largely been successful, identifying thousands of threats over the years and mitigating them via Umbrella’s blocking capabilities when necessary. This was taken a step further at Black Hat London 2021, where we introduced our Virtual Appliances to provide source IP attribution to the devices making requests.
Here at Black Hat Asia 2022, we’ve been noodling on additional ways to provide advanced protection for future shows, and it starts with Umbrella’s Cloud Application Discovery’s feature, which identified 2,286 unique applications accessed by users on the attendee network across the four-day conference. Looking at a snapshot from a single day of the show, Umbrella captured 572,282 DNS requests from all cloud apps, with over 42,000 posing either high or very high risk.
Digging deeper into the data, we see not only the types of apps being accessed…
…but also see the apps themselves…
…and we can flag apps that look suspicious.
We also include risk downs breaks by category…
…and drill downs on each.
While this data alone won’t provide enough information to take action, including this data in analysis, something we have been doing, may provide a window into new threat vectors that may have previously gone unseen. For example, if we identify a compromised device infected with malware or a device attempting to access things on the network that are restricted, we can dig deeper into the types of cloud apps those devices are using and correlate that data with suspicious request activity, potential uncovering tools we should be blocking in the future.
I can’t say for certain how much this extra data set will help us uncover new threats, but, with Black Hat USA just around the corner, we’ll find out soon.
Using SecureX sign-on to streamline access to the Cisco Stack at Black Hat by Adi Sankar
From five years ago to now, Cisco has tremendously expanded our presence at Black Hat to include a multitude of products. Of course, sign-on was simple when it was just one product (Secure Malware Analytics) and one user to log in. When it came time to add a new technology to the stack it was added separately as a standalone product with its own method of logging in. As the number of products increased, so did the number of Cisco staff at the conference to support these products. This means sharing usernames and passwords became tedious and not to mention insecure, especially with 15 Cisco staff, plus partners, accessing the platforms.
The Cisco Secure stack at Black Hat includes SecureX, Umbrella, Malware Analytics, Secure Endpoint (iOS clarity), and Meraki. All of these technologies support using SAML SSO natively with SecureX sign-on. This means that each of our Cisco staff members can have an individual SecureX sign-on account to log into the various consoles. This results in better role-based access control, better audit logging and an overall better login experience. With SecureX sign-on we can log into all the products only having to type a password one time and approve one Cisco DUO Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) push.
How does this magic work behind the scenes? It’s actually rather simple to configure SSO for each of the Cisco technologies, since they all support SecureX sign-on natively. First and foremost, you must set up a new SecureX org by creating a SecureX sign-on account, creating a new organization and integrating at least one Cisco technology. In this case I created a new SecureX organization for Black Hat and added the Secure Endpoint module, Umbrella Module, Meraki Systems Manager module and the Secure Malware Analytics module. Then from Administration à Users in SecureX, I sent an invite to the Cisco staffers that would be attending the conference, which contained a link to create their account and join the Blackhat SecureX organization. Next let’s take a look at the individual product configurations.
Meraki:
In the Meraki organization settings enable SecureX sign-on. Then under Organization à Administrators add a new user and specify SecureX sign-on as the authentication method. Meraki even lets you limit users to particular networks and set permission levels for those networks. Accepting the email invitation is easy since the user should already be logged into their SecureX sign-on account. Now, logging into Meraki only requires an email address and no password or additional DUO push.
Umbrella:
Under Admin à Authentication configure SecureX sign-on which requires a test login to ensure you can still login before using SSO for authentication to Umbrella. There is no need to configure MFA in Umbrella since SecureX sign-on comes with built in DUO MFA. Existing users and any new users added in Umbrella under Admin à Accounts will now be using SecureX sign-on to login to Umbrella. Logging into Umbrella is now a seamless launch from the SecureX dashboard or from the SecureX ribbon in any of the other consoles.
Secure Malware Analytics:
A Secure Malware Analytics organization admin can create new users in their Threat Grid tenant. This username is unique to Malware Analytics, but it can be connected to a SecureX sign-on account to take advantage of the seamless login flow. From the email invitation the user will create a password for their Malware Analytics user and accept the EULA. Then in the top right under My Malware Analytics Account, the user has an option to connect their SecureX sign-on account which is a one click process if already signed in with SecureX sign-on. Now when a user navigates to Malware Analytics login page, simply clicking “Login with SecureX Sign-On” will grant them access to the console.
Secure Endpoint:
The Secure Endpoint deployment at Blackhat is limited to IOS clarity through Meraki Systems Manager for the conference IOS devices. Most of the asset information we need about the iPhones/iPads is brought in through the SecureX Device Insights inventory. However, for initial configuration and to view device trajectory it is required to log into Secure Endpoint. A new Secure Endpoint account can be created under Accounts à Users and an invite is sent to corresponding email address. Accepting the invite is a smooth process since the user is already signed in with SecureX sign-on. Privileges for the user in the Endpoint console can be granted from within the user account.
Conclusion:
To sum it all up, SecureX sign-on is the standard for the Cisco stack moving forward. With a new SecureX organization instantiated using SecureX sign-on any new users to the Cisco stack at Black Hat will be using SecureX sign-on. SecureX sign-on has helped our user management be much more secure as we have expanded our presence at Black Hat. SecureX sign-on provides a unified login mechanism for all the products and modernized our login experience at the conference.
Malware Threat Intelligence made easy and available, with Cisco Secure Malware Analytics and SecureX by Ben Greenbaum
I’d gotten used to people’s reactions upon seeing SecureX in use for the first time. A few times at Black Hat, a small audience gathered just to watch us effortlessly correlate data from multiple threat intelligence repositories and several security sensor networks in just a few clicks in a single interface for rapid sequencing of events and an intuitive understanding of security events, situations, causes, and consequences. You’ve already read about a few of these instances above. Here is just one example of SecureX automatically putting together a chronological history of observed network events detected by products from two vendors (Cisco Umbrella and NetWitness) . The participation of NetWitness in this and all of our other investigations was made possible by our open architecture, available APIs and API specifications, and the creation of the NetWitness module described above.
In addition to the traffic and online activities of hundreds of user devices on the network, we were responsible for monitoring a handful of Black Hat-owned devices as well. Secure X Device Insights made it easy to access information about these assets, either en masse or as required during an ongoing investigation. iOS Clarity for Secure Endpoint and Meraki System Manager both contributed to this useful tool which adds business intelligence and asset context to SecureX’s native event and threat intelligence, for more complete and more actionable security intelligence overall.
SecureX is made possible by dozens of integrations, each bringing their own unique information and capabilities. This time though, for me, the star of the SecureX show was our malware analysis engine, Cisco Secure Malware Analytics (CSMA). Shortly before Black Hat Asia, the CSMA team released a new version of their SecureX module. SecureX can now query CSMA’s database of malware behavior and activity, including all relevant indicators and observables, as an automated part of the regular process of any investigation performed in SecureX Threat Response.
This capability is most useful in two scenarios:
1: determining if suspicious domains, IPs and files reported by any other technology had been observed in the analysis of any of the millions of publicly submitted file samples, or our own.
2: rapidly gathering additional context about files submitted to the analysis engine by the integrated products in the Black Hat NOC.
The first was a significant time saver in several investigations. In the example below, we received an alert about connections to a suspicious domain. In that scenario, our first course of action is to investigate the domain and any other observables reported with it (typically the internal and public IPs included in the alert). Due to the new CSMA module, we immediately discovered that the domain had a history of being contacted by a variety of malware samples, from multiple families, and that information, corroborated by automatically gathered reputation information from multiple sources about each of those files, gave us an immediate next direction to investigate as we hunted for evidence of those files being present in network traffic or of any traffic to other C&C resources known to be used by those families. From the first alert to having a robust, data-driven set of related signals to look for, took only minutes, including from SecureX partner Recorded Future, who donated a full threat intelligence license for the Black Hat NOC.
The other scenario, investigating files submitted for analysis, came up less frequently but when it did, the CSMA/SecureX integration was equally impressive. We could rapidly, nearly immediately, look for evidence of any of our analyzed samples in the environment across all other deployed SecureX-compatible technologies. That evidence was no longer limited to searching for the hash itself, but included any of the network resources or dropped payloads associated with the sample as well, easily identifying local targets who had not perhaps seen the exact variant submitted, but who had nonetheless been in contact with that sample’s Command and Control infrastructure or other related artifacts.
And of course, thanks to the presence of the ribbon in the CSMA UI, we could be even more efficient and do this with multiple samples at once.
SecureX greatly increased the efficiency of our small volunteer team, and certainly made it possible for us to investigate more alerts and events, and hunt for more threats, all more thoroughly, than we would have been able to without it. SecureX truly took this team to the next level, by augmenting and operationalizing the tools and the staff that we had at our disposal.
We look forward to seeing you at Black Hat USA in Las Vegas, 6-11 August 2022!
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to the Cisco Meraki and Cisco Secure Black Hat NOC team: Aditya Sankar, Aldous Yeung, Alejo Calaoagan, Ben Greenbaum, Christian Clasen, Felix H Y Lam, George Dorsey, Humphrey Cheung, Ian Redden, Jeffrey Chua, Jeffry Handal, Jonny Noble, Matt Vander Horst, Paul Fidler and Steven Fan.
Also, to our NOC partners NetWitness (especially David Glover), Palo Alto Networks (especially James Holland), Gigamon, IronNet (especially Bill Swearington), and the entire Black Hat / Informa Tech staff (especially Grifter ‘Neil Wyler’, Bart Stump, James Pope, Steve Fink and Steve Oldenbourg).
About Black Hat
For more than 20 years, Black Hat has provided attendees with the very latest in information security research, development, and trends. These high-profile global events and trainings are driven by the needs of the security community, striving to bring together the best minds in the industry. Black Hat inspires professionals at all career levels, encouraging growth and collaboration among academia, world-class researchers, and leaders in the public and private sectors. Black Hat Briefings and Trainings are held annually in the United States, Europe and Asia. More information is available at: blackhat.com. Black Hat is brought to you by Informa Tech.
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.
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.
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.
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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