Cisco is using the RSA conference to roll out a new security framework that brings the company’s TrustSec to firewalls and brings more awareness of security to all parts of the network.
As part of the SecureX launch, Cisco is delivering new features for its ASA firewall hardware as well as improvements to the AnyConnect mobile VPN client. The overall goal of SecureX is to make networks more aware of policy and threats, no matter where the threats or the endpoint reside.
“SecureX is about making security more distributed and ingrained in the network fabric and bringing in context-aware scanning,” Kevin Kennedy, product line manager at Cisco, told InternetNews.com.
Kennedy noted that SecureX is a response to changes in the market for how security needs to be implemented. He said that cloud, virtualization and mobility deployments have changed the nature of technology usage as well as the associated risks and threats. Instead of thinking about network security in terms of IP addresses and ports, Kennedy said that the language of security needs to change. In other words, security policies need to correlate more closely with business rules and definitions.
Cisco’s previous security architecture – the self-defending network – was more of a static environment, according to Kennedy. Though the way that security has now shifted, the core hardware underpinning of having a firewall and network IPS still remain in place.
“The firewall is still the most deployed element for security and so we are bringing context-aware capabilities into our ASA firewall,” Kennedy said. “That brings together rich context notions and combines information from TrustSec for network information and brings in global context from Cisco Security Intelligence Operations (SIO).”
