Cisco Extends Security Leadership With Advances in Cloud Protection

Enhanced Web Reporting and Data-Loss Prevention for E-mail Build on Secure Borderless Network Architecture


LONDON--(Marketwire - April 28, 2010) -  Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today continued its momentum around cloud protection and the Cisco® Secure Borderless Network architecture by introducing significant enhancements to its cloud security platform. The company today introduced best-of-breed e-mail and Web security services that, when combined with Cisco's leading global threat intelligence resources and strategic investments, deliver stronger cloud security for enterprise users.

Many businesses are demanding cloud-based collaboration and communications solutions that provide mobile workforces with the ability to access vital data anytime, anywhere and from any device. Naturally, this magnitude of collaboration and communication carries increased security risks, because much of the network access happens outside the traditional corporate firewall. To address these concerns, Cisco is introducing the always-on cloud-based Cisco IronPort™ Email Data Loss Prevention and Encryption and Cisco ScanSafe Web Intelligence Reporting. These services offer enterprises more flexibility for their security solutions, reducing management requirements, stabilizing costs, providing control over the network with better visibility, and maintaining compliance with regulations.

Cisco's most recent enhancements to its cloud security offerings include:

  • Cisco ScanSafe Web Intelligence Reporting -- WIRe is a business intelligence platform developed by ScanSafe, which was acquired by Cisco in December 2009. WIRe gives enterprises insight into how their Web resources are being used, focusing on ensuring that business-critical applications are not being affected by non-business-related traffic. In a matter of seconds, WIRe can deliver detailed user-level information and provide extensive information about Web communications activities. More than 80 predefined reports are available, and WIRe enables activities to be reported and filtered by 87 different attributes, including search terms and employee bandwidth usage over time. By clearly seeing the types of traffic coming into and exiting the network, enterprises can have a high degree of confidence that their corporate information is highly secure and that all malware and inappropriate content has been blocked.

  • Cloud-based Cisco IronPort Email Data Loss Prevention and Encryption -- Cisco's cloud e-mail data-loss prevention solution utilizes the power of Cisco Cloud Security Services to help protect outbound e-mail in the cloud, helping enable customers to meet compliance requirements with a comprehensive, accurate and simple-to-use solution. This data-loss prevention and encryption solution is designed for enterprises that require high levels of protection of their sensitive data but do not want to manage the infrastructure themselves. Additionally, it provides customers with hosted mailboxes as well as the advantage of regulating compliance and acceptable-use policies. The solution offers more than 100 predefined policies related to global compliance, regulatory compliance, regional laws, intellectual property protection and acceptable use. A powerful in-depth scanning engine examines 150 parameters, scanning files within files and analyzing the proximity of keywords, which can result in a false-positive rate of less than one in 1 million. Providing integrated encryption as a remediation option solidifies the strength and value of this unique offering.

Cisco's Investment in Cloud Security

In support of its Secure Borderless Network architecture, Cisco has constructed one of the industry's most powerful cloud security deployments. Cisco operates more than 30 global data centers, which serve customers in 100 countries with extreme reliability. In fact, Cisco customers have enjoyed more than seven consecutive years of near 100 percent uptime. Cisco cloud security solutions handle massive amounts of activity each day, including 2.8 billion reputation look-ups, 2.5 billion Web requests and the detection of more than 250 billion spam messages. The Cisco IronPort Anti-Spam solution is in more than 235 million seats with organizations all over the world. These solutions are supported by automated intelligence and by 100 engineers dedicated to ensuring that Cisco cloud security is there to fortify customer networks.

Supporting Quotes:

  • Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security, Infonetics Research -- "Demand for content security services delivered via software as a service has skyrocketed worldwide during the past year, despite the lasting effects of the global economic meltdown. The cloud security market will continue to grow as organizations of all sizes assess their risk from security threats of all types and seek solutions that are not as complex as historical security offerings for managing a highly dispersed workforce that connects to the network using a variety of devices. We anticipate that the strong interest in cloud security will be a key driver in the significant growth in the overall managed security services market over the next five years."

  • Tom Gillis, vice president and general manager, Security Technology business unit, Cisco -- "The cloud is a critical component of Cisco's architectural approach, including its Secure Borderless Network architecture. Securing the cloud is highly challenging. But it is one of the top challenges that the industry must rise to meet as enterprises increasingly demand the flexibility, accessibility and ease of management that cloud-based applications offer for their mobile and distributed workforces. With our industry-leading security solutions and threat-information resources as a foundation, Cisco's cloud security products provide the visibility, experience and tools to help protect enterprises' critical and proprietary data."

  • Paul Moorman, IT strategist at NewPage Corp. -- "With Cisco's WIRe, we have been able to quickly and efficiently analyze our Web usage, which gives us better visibility into our business and our bandwidth needs. Now we are able to pinpoint exactly how and where our bandwidth is being used, and take action to prevent access to individual websites or target users who may be accessing inappropriate content."

  • Eric Dumas, networks and systems manager, ID Logistics -- "In our line of business, we must be absolutely certain that our data is secure. Cisco's cloud e-mail data-loss protection solution provides us with the assurance that our cloud-based e-mail and our corporate data have the industry's best protection."

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Technorati Tags: Cisco, IronPort, borderless networks, ScanSafe, DLP, data loss prevention, hosted, cloud, security, network security, developers, reporting, business intelligence, firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, spam, virus, malware, software-as-a-service, SaaS, security as a service, enterprise security, security appliance. 

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Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and corporate social responsibility. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

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