The world is shifting towards a more distributed workforce — and, with recent global events, the trend is only accelerating. From big global enterprises to smaller local businesses, and everything in between, people now work anywhere and everywhere, from any and every device. And as data bypasses centralized security, finding a cyber security package that protects these users — and your organization — from cyber threats is more challenging than ever.
It may sound scary and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Cisco Umbrella has been helping companies of all sizes protect users on and off-network since 2006. SC Media recently named Cisco best security company for 2021, and Cisco Umbrella Best SME security solution for simplifying the IT environment while providing the best cybersecurity with the highest performance and scalability.
We’re excited to offer our customers even more functionality and value with our latest enhancements of Cisco Umbrella, a core component of Cisco’s secure access service edge (SASE) architecture. We are leading the way for a new, integrated approach – one in which networking and security functions are synchronized in a single, unified service that delivers protection and performance wherever employees access the internet or cloud applications.
Marrying simplicity and security in a single integrated platform
We continue to focus on our core competency: effective security that is simple to deploy and manage. We are committed to helping organizations unlock the power of SASE with an all-in-one service that significantly simplifies security and reduces the cost, time, and resources previously required for deployment, configuration, and integration. By unifying secure web gateway, cloud access security broker, DNS-layer security, firewall, remote browser isolation and more – we can help you centrally manage protection for all your users and locations from a single dashboard.
Today at RSA 2021 we are pleased to announce the following enhancements for Cisco Umbrella:
- Automated Meraki MX integration that extends the SD-WAN fabric to Umbrella for fast, reliable, secure access to apps*
- Deeper cloud firewall protection via real-time threat detection/correlation with new (Snort 3) intrusion prevention system *
- Added protection for high-risk destinations and users with Remote Browser Inspection (RBI)
- Identification and remediation of malicious files in cloud storage applications with cloud malware detection
But wait there’s more! We’re offering more value to customers with new and enhanced packages:
- New Umbrella SIG Advantage package for the highest level of protection**
- Enhanced Umbrella SIG Essentials package with additional protection at no extra cost**
Let’s dig into the new capabilities inside Cisco Umbrella:
Automated Umbrella-Meraki MX integration, including intelligent path selection for SD-WAN
We’ve enhanced our existing integration to further simplify deployment of cloud security across your SD-WAN fabric. You can automatically set up an encrypted tunnel between Meraki MX devices and Umbrella with a simple click from the Meraki dashboard. This extends the SD-WAN fabric into Umbrella, making it easy to apply cloud security across thousands of locations. You can now inspect traffic with SSL decryption at a scale not possible with on-premises hardware and protect sensitive data. Intelligent path selection together with Umbrella’s global cloud architecture ensures the fastest, most reliable, and secure path applications regardless of where they are hosted. Learn more about Umbrella-Meraki MX integration.
New intrusion prevention system (IPS) added to the cloud-delivered firewall to block attacks
Exploits can happen in real-time and must be detected quickly to ensure fast response, elimination of threats, and reduction of false positives. Umbrella’s cloud-delivered firewall now includes intrusion prevention system (IPS). This additional layer of network security/threat prevention, based on Snort 3 technology, uses signature-based detection to examine network traffic flows and prevent vulnerability exploits. Now you can create firewall policies that analyze outbound traffic flows and take automated actions to catch and drop dangerous packets before they reach their target.
Umbrella IPS uses the extensive and continuously expanding signatures (40,000+ and growing) from Cisco Talos, the largest private security threat intelligence organization in the world.
Added protection for high-risk destinations and users
The need for fast, secure access to the internet and SaaS apps has reached a crescendo. Cisco Umbrella’s remote browser isolation (RBI) provides an added layer of defense against browser-based attacks — without burdening IT or compromising the end user experience. Available in three add-on options to suit your unique needs, remote browser isolation allows high risk users to safely browse websites, while protecting devices and corporate networks from browser-based exploits. Worried about deployment? It’s a snap. IT can deploy quickly without changing existing browser configurations or needing additional plug-ins. In fact, 100% of our customers who participated in our early testing reported “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with RBI testing. They found it to be intuitive and seamless, and said, “the performance is crisp, with video and audio working as expected.”
Identification and remediation of malicious files in cloud storage application
Stop playing hide and seek with malicious malware. It’s important to scan cloud storage repositories and ensure that malicious files are eliminated. With cloud malware detection, Cisco Umbrella makes sure cloud storage applications are not compromised by malware. Umbrella detects and removes malware from these apps to prevent the spread of malware infections laterally on your network. You can scan cloud file storage repositories for malware and detect potentially malicious files that are uploaded or edited. Once identified, you can take corrective action to quarantine or delete malicious files, and generate reports on usage, potentially compromised accounts, and potential threats within the network. Cloud malware detection is part of the SIG Essentials and SIG Advantage packages. In recent testing, customers found it to be effective in finding malicious files in their cloud environments, and said it was easy to ”sort & filter to identify the riskiest files”.
Simple and effective security can coexist
Securing today’s “work anywhere” organization requires networking and security functions to be synchronized in a single, unified service that delivers protection and performance wherever employees access the internet or cloud applications. And our customers agree.
“Cisco Umbrella was unlike any other security product we’d ever seen. By stopping threats at the DNS layer before they can even reach our network, Umbrella could bring that security everywhere Boston Medical’s work happens, regardless of location or device.”
Lee Cullivan, CISO, Boston Medical Center5
“If you think about securing your house from a burglar, you want to stop them before they even enter your home. Most of the other competing secure web gateways would let threats get into the network and then fight them inside, but Umbrella stops the threats before they even get in, and that’s a big difference. You can’t ask for anything better than that.”
Thierry Tadzong, Senior Network Engineer, Frederick Health
In a recent customer survey, a whopping 82% of our customers recently surveyed [link to TechValidate survey] said that they saw value after deploying Cisco Umbrella in less than a week. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents reduced malware infections by 75% with Cisco Umbrella. Three-fourths of the participants stated that “fast and easy deployment” is the top benefit of using Cisco Umbrella.
New and enhanced Umbrella packages for the best protection and value
In the end, whatever we do, we must make sure that we make it easy for your team to consume and manage our service. Our new SIG Advantage package offers the most complete set of security capabilities in a single subscription to help you meet the highest levels of security. It offers tremendous value because it is easy to consume and enables you to reduce significant complexities otherwise associated with purchasing and unifying point solutions. It is especially useful if you believe in the promise of SASE!
Don’t worry if you don’t need all these capabilities yet. We also enhanced our SIG Essentials package to include cloud malware detection and increased file malware analysis at no extra cost. We want to make sure that you can protect your environment with the latest and greatest innovations at Cisco.
Learn more
To learn more about the announcement we shared at RSA 2021, watch this video. You can also read more about what’s new on our website.
* Early availability currently limited to select customers
** Available in July 2021
