Monday, July 11, 2016

Cisco Builds its Cloud-based Security

Cisco rolled out a number of new services and cloud-based security solutions, including:

Cisco Umbrella Roaming: a centralized, cloud-delivered protection is the simplest way to remove off-network blind spots, guarding roaming employees wherever they work. Umbrella Roaming is now embedded as a module with AnyConnect (Cisco’s VPN solution). It adds a new layer of off-network protection that blocks connections to malicious sites without needing to deploy another agent.

Cisco Umbrella Branch:  a cloud-delivered solution gives businesses more control over guest Wi-Fi use with easy content filtering. With Umbrella Branch, businesses can simply upgrade Integrated Services Routers (ISR) for simple, fast and comprehensive security at branch locations.

Cisco Defense Orchestrator: This cloud-based management application enables users to easily and effectively manage a large security infrastructure and policies in distributed locations across thousands of devices through a simple cloud-based console. It cuts through complexity to manage security policies across Cisco security products from ASA and ASAv firewalls to Cisco Firepower next-generation firewalls and ASA with FirePOWER Services featuring Firepower Threat Defense, and OpenDNS.

Cisco Meraki MX Security Appliances with Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and Threat Grid: a cloud-managed unified threat management (UTM) solution simplifies advanced threat protection for the distributed enterprise, providing branch offices with malware protection that checks files against its cloud database to identify malicious content, blocking the files before users download them.

Cisco Stealthwatch Learning Network License: This component enables the Cisco ISR to act as a security sensor and enforcer for branch threat protection. It allows businesses to detect and track anomalies in network traffic, analyze suspicious network activity, and identify malicious traffic.

“Digital business is the most impactful disruption to security in the history of the technology industry. As a result, companies are struggling to manage the security challenges from both large, distributed environments and the active adversaries aggressively targeting these expansive attack surfaces every day. Our customers are finding that they need a more integrated approach to security, and Cisco provides them with a threat-centric security architecture that is much more effective in a digital world,” stated David Goeckeler, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Networking and Security Business, Cisco Systems

http://www.cisco.com

CenturyLink Launches Location-Based Analytics

CenturyLink introduced Location-Based Analytics, a mobile engagement, analytics and marketing solution for owners and operators of spaces and places where customers congregate.
CenturyLink Location-Based Analytics is anchored by the CenturyLink Managed Wi-Fi solution that features high-capacity Cisco Meraki Wi-Fi access points and security appliances for delivering fast data connection speeds and reliable coverage for equipment sensors and visitors' mobile devices.

CenturyLink said its fully managed solution can garner relevant customer demographic and location data and then apply analytics capabilities to discern business insights, and social engagement and marketing tools for businesses to act upon data findings in real-time.

"Location-Based Analytics from CenturyLink empowers owners and operators of venues and spaces – such as amusement parks, college campuses, retail destinations and transportation hubs – to make deeper emotional connections with individual customers in real-time," said Troy Trenchard, vice president, product management, CenturyLink.

http://www.centurylink.com

Gigamon Brings Automated Data Center Topology Visualization

Gigamon announced an automated network topology visualization - for managing visibility infrastructure at scale in large data centers.

The new capability provides end-to-end visualization of Gigamon's Visibility Fabric components, associated production networks and interfaces from which traffic is sourced and the connected security and monitoring tools that analyze this traffic. It provides automated discovery of the attached networks using the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) or Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP).

Gigamon said that when security and monitoring tools attached to its Security Delivery Platform detect abnormal behavior, an administrator can quickly trace back to the network interfaces at the source of the abnormality, significantly reducing the mean time to resolution (MTTR).

“We remain committed to offering vendor-agnostic visibility and are uniquely able to meet the needs of customers with large data centers and clouds,” said Sesh Sayani, Director of Product Management, Gigamon. “We recognize that the Visibility Fabric is rapidly becoming essential data center infrastructure and we will continue to be customer-driven in the capabilities that make our market-leading solution easy to use for troubleshooting and security.”

http://www.gigamon.com

UEFA Euro 2016 Brought Increased Cyber Threats to Fans

The risks for digitally active sports fans more than doubled during the 2016 UEFA European Championship, according to a new report from Allot Communications, in collaboration with Kaspersky Lab. The research analyzed the mobile app and website usage of one million randomly selected mobile subscribers from countries participating in EUFA Euro 2016, before and during the matches.

Some highlights of the Allot MobileTrends Report UEFA Euro 2016: How Sports Events Put Mobile Users at Risk:

  • 17% of mobile users who exhibited little or no use of sports apps or websites before the games, became active sports fans during the games. Nearly 50% of these “casual fans” transitioned into sports fans’ behavior profiles with high potential risk for malware.
  • The total number of mobile sports fans at high risk for cyber threats more than doubled during the games.
  • Increases in online sports betting and social networking are major contributors to increased cyber security risk.
  • The number of mobile sports fans accessing betting sites more than doubled during the tournament’s matches. Before the matches, 1 in 9 users visited sports betting sites. During the matches, 1 in 4 visited sports betting sites.
  • During matches, the average time users spent on social media apps or sites tripled over their pre-tournament activity.

"Cyber-criminals often use big events to lure users with phishing emails and fake websites, exposing fans to intensified and new potential cyber risks. Users should be aware of potential threats and lookout when clicking on links, entering their credentials on websites or making financial transactions.” noted Alexander Karpitsky, Head of Technology Licensing, Kaspersky Lab. “We at Kaspersky Lab recommend sports fans take a proactive approach to their online security, especially when mobile, safeguarding their devices with IT security solutions at all times.”

“As sports fans are going mobile and devices are used widely for watching, recording, and sharing experiences, users must protect themselves online, and CSPs are in the best position to deliver these value added services to subscribers,” said Yaniv Sulkes, AVP Marketing at Allot Communications. “Since major sports events are shown to be times of high risk for mobile users, it’s also when mobile service providers have an opportunity to educate customers regarding malware risks and to offer network-based security services to protect mobile devices. With Rio 2016 Summer Olympics on the horizon, mobile operators who adopt a proactive cyber protection strategy for their customers will be able to leverage monetization opportunities.”

http://www.allot.com


Pluribus Advances its Network Monitoring Solution

Pluribus Networks introduced its VCFcenter -- a single pane of glass that combines a big data approach to network visibility with web-scale analytics to offer a business-level network analytics solution.

VCFcenter, which can be deployed in any new or existing campus, branch or data center, is ananalytics platform that provides a wide range of foundational services, including secure user access, common user interface and shared data repository to all of the applications that are hosted within its framework.

Pluribus said its VCFcenter allows organizations to collect and analyze contextual information about business service application flows, and can scale into the billions of flows for web-scale applications. VCFcenter and its applications provide performance metrics associated with the use of any business service, from the packet, to the network flow or even the application level.

“The Modern Enterprise is rapidly adopting software-defined and hyperconverged compute and storage solutions due to the simplicity and value they offer the end user. They are also adding big data, mobility and even IoT applications to their IT strategies,” said Tom Burns, VP and GM of Networking Products at Dell. “The network itself and the business-level analytics which can be derived from it have once again become a critical success factor for our customers. Working with Pluribus enables Dell and its partners to offer an affordable and complementary business-management solution at the network layer.”

http://www.pluribus.com