Cisco has unveiled the latest progress towards its vision of the Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, AI-driven, cross-domain security platform. Cisco’s new XDR solution and the release of advanced features for Duo MFA will help organizations better protect the integrity of their entire IT ecosystem.
Cisco’s XDR strategy converges its deep expertise and visibility across the network and endpoints into one turnkey, risk-based solution. Now in Beta with General Availability coming in July 2023, Cisco XDR simplifies investigating incidents and enables security operations centers (SOCs) to immediately remediate threats. The cloud-first solution applies analytics to prioritize detections and moves the focus from endless investigations to remediating the highest priority incidents with evidence-backed automation.
“The threat landscape is complex and evolving. Detection without response is insufficient, while response without detection is impossible. With Cisco XDR, security operations teams can respond and remediate threats before they have a chance to cause significant damage,” says Jeetu Patel, executive vice-president and GM: security and collaboration at Cisco. “Cisco continues to ensure that ‘if it’s connected, then rest assured you’re also protected’. We are uniquely positioned to deliver integrated solutions that simplify securing today’s increasingly complex, hybrid multi-cloud environments without compromising user experience.”
While traditional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technology provides management for log-centric data and measures outcomes in days, Cisco XDR focuses on telemetry-centric data and delivers outcomes in minutes. It natively analyzes and correlates the six telemetry sources that Security Operations Center (SOC) operators say are critical for an XDR solution: endpoint, network, firewall, email, identity, and DNS. On the endpoint specifically, Cisco XDR leverages insight from 200 million endpoints with Cisco Secure Client, formerly AnyConnect, to provide process-level visibility of where the endpoint meets the network.
In addition to Cisco’s native telemetry, Cisco XDR integrates with leading third-party vendors to share telemetry, increase interoperability, and deliver consistent outcomes regardless of vendor or technology.
The initial set of out-of-the-box integrations at general availability include:
* Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR, Cybereason Endpoint Detection and Response, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR, SentinelOne Singularity, Trend Vision One.
* Email Threat Defense: Microsoft Defender for Office, Proofpoint Email Protection.
* Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW): Check Point Quantum, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall.
* Network Detection and Response (NDR): Darktrace DETECT and Darktrace RESPOND, ExtraHop Reveal(x).
* Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Microsoft Sentinel.
Zero Trust and Access Management
As attackers increasingly target gaps in weaker multi-factor authentication (MFA) implementations, Cisco is redefining what is essential for access management. Every business needs three key pillars for its access management strategy: enforcing strong authentication, verifying devices, and reducing the number of passwords in use.
This is why, beginning on 1 May, Cisco is adding Trusted Endpoints to all its paid Duo Editions. Previously just available in Duo’s highest tier, Trusted Endpoints allows only registered or managed devices to access resources. By delivering Trusted Endpoints alongside Single Sign On, MFA, Passwordless, and Verified Push within the entry-level Duo Essentials edition, Cisco is delivering the most secure, cost-effective, and user-friendly access management solution on the market.