Security

Securing the Intelligent Information Network

The Self-Defending Network is Cisco's long-term strategy to protect an organization's business processes by identifying, preventing, and adapting to threats from both internal and external sources. This protection helps organizations take better advantage of the intelligence in their network resources, thus improving business processes and cutting costs.

There are three principal characteristics of the Cisco Self-Defending Network:

• The integration of security throughout all aspects of the network
• Collaborative processes between the various security and network elements
• The ability of the network to adapt to new threats as they arise

The Cisco networked-based strategy allows you to use your existing investment to solve your most pressing security concerns today, while providing an architectural platform that can evolve to proactive, automated, real-time management of threats.

Each day, forward-thinking organizations reinvent how they conduct business by adopting Internet-based business models. The results? - Competitive advantage, new sources of revenue, and optimized business processes.

But Internet connectivity without appropriate security can compromise the very gains in productivity that makes today’s companies more profitable. In the past, security threats from external sources were slow-moving and easy to defend against. In today’s connected environment, outbreaks spread across the world in a matter of minutes, and security systems must react instantly.

Increasingly, security attacks target browser-based business applications. Because these dynamic, complex custom applications may not have antivirus signatures or regularly available application patches, one breach in security can expose assets, trigger legal liability, severely damage customer confidence, and negatively affect profitability.

Today’s administrators grapple with the consequences of tactical, reactionary point-solution approaches to security. Point solutions introduce complexity and inconsistency into the environment. A highly complex, inconsistent environment results in:

• Weaker security—Complexity and inconsistency introduce risk gaps
• Lower end-to-end visibility—The insight needed for effective operational management and policy control is impeded
• Security posture erosion—Organizations are unable to maintain security capability, much less improve it
• Higher total cost of ownership—Point solutions, needing complex integration, require more focus to implement, maintain, and manage over time
• Lack of agility—Complexity impedes the organization’s ability to align policy with evolving business objectives

In some industries, such as medical and financial services, governments now regulate data privacy. Point solutions can protect data privacy at network endpoints, but point solutions do not provide insight and visibility into all areas of the network. End-to-end security visibility gives security managers the information they need to implement best practices all along the network and ensure compliance with government requirements.

In today’s environment, it is imperative to align information technology (IT) processes with business objectives. Because the network touches all parts of the business infrastructure, an integrated, networkwide security solution is uniquely positioned to help businesses meet their objectives.

THE CISCO VISION

Cisco Systems® empowers security managers to safely deploy critical business applications and processes on integrated networks to help them increase productivity and gain competitive advantage. These networks are integrated, resilient, and adaptable. The confidence that comes from knowing that an organization’s business processes and information assets are secure is a critical factor in unlocking tremendous gains in productivity and dynamic growth.

Other security vendors can provide point solutions to achieve a base level of security for IP networks. Such solutions frequently require complex, costly, and time-consuming integration efforts.

Cisco® delivers advanced, integrated network security systems and services required for an organization’s mission-critical networks. Cisco continues to add security intelligence to the network infrastructure, understanding that security is not an afterthought—it is fundamental to business processes and, ultimately, to business success.

BUILDING THE SELF-DEFENDING NETWORK

The Cisco Self-Defending Network is a strategic systems approach to security that uses the network to identify, prevent, and adapt to threats from internal and external sources. A Self-Defending Network simplifies the security environment through tight integration, comprehensive security, increased end-to-end visibility, and improved total cost of ownership. All components of the network—the secure network platform, advanced services and technologies, and operational management and policy control—play a part in securing the networked environment.

Integration, collaboration, and adaptability are core capabilities of the Self-Defending Network and are unique to Cisco. With an unmatched breadth and depth of offerings and security expertise, only Cisco can offer such a network-based, system approach.

• Integration of security throughout the existing infrastructure—built-in, not added on. Every element in the network acts as a point of defense.
• Collaboration between network and security components throughout the network. Security becomes a system involving cooperation between security-aware endpoints, network elements, and policy enforcement.
• Adaptability of the network to intelligently evolve and adapt to emerging threats. Examples include innovative behavioral methods that automatically recognize new types of threats as they arise, mutual awareness among and between security services and network intelligence for more proactive response, and broad recognition capabilities to address threats at multiple layers of the network.