Cisco unveiled the latest progress towards its vision of the Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, AI-driven, cross-domain security platform. Cisco’s new Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solution and the release of advanced features for Duo MFA will help organizations better protect the integrity of their entire IT ecosystem.
Threat Detection and Response
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 remediate threats immediately. 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.
Fady Younes, Cybersecurity Director, EMEA Service Providers and MEA, Cisco, said: “Across our region and beyond, the threat landscape is becoming more and more complex. To quickly identify and mitigate threats before they cause damage, security teams need to have a unified view of the entire attack surface. Cisco’s new XDR solution is responding exactly to that need. It is designed to help our customers simplify safeguarding IT environments and providing them with increased visibility across the network and endpoint. By leveraging automation, XDR empowers decision-makers to respond to and remediate threats before any widespread impact.”
Traditional Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technology provides management for log-centric data and measures outcomes in days. However, 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 Micro 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 redefines 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 May 1st, 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.
