Make Sense of the Current Security Landscape with Cisco’s SecureX
Businesses have been pushed to adopt new tools and technologies to support a distributed workforce. While those solutions have enabled them to get through a time of economic crisis, they’ve also opened up organizations to potential new vulnerabilities.
“The security landscape continues to become more complex and more advanced,” says Dave Chapman, VP of sales for CDW, in a recent webinar on the topic.
Bad actors have been taking advantage of the current climate, and there’s evidence that remote work increases the likelihood that a ransomware attack will be successful.
“Hackers and their attacks continue to become more complex, and their impact on corporations is absolutely crippling,” says Craig Martin, former solutions architect for Cisco, in the webinar. “We see that over and over again in the industry: Businesses really lack the adequate staffing and security expertise as well as the tools to keep up with the bad guys.”
Larger, more complicated IT environments only create more ways that someone can gain access to the network, making an integrated security solution more important than ever.
DISCOVER: Learn how SecureX can protect your organization.
Businesses Need to Respond to Security Threats Quickly
When it comes to thwarting cyberattacks, timing is everything.
“In customer surveys, Cisco’s hearing that the time to detect security breaches is one of the key metrics for security teams,” says Martin. “But the challenge of achieving this quickly is that their security solutions need better integration.”
One way that CISOs are trying to cut down on this time is through automation, according to a recent Cisco study.
“At least three quarters of these leaders have plans to automate security functions by using open APIs to orchestrate security tasks that they’re currently doing manually,” says Martin. “They need simple tools to help them in this journey.”
He says that often, simplicity can be achieved through integration platforms like Cisco’s SecureX.
“SecureX connects the Cisco secure portfolio with the customer’s infrastructure,” says Martin. “It creates an integrated, open security platform. It also unifies your entire security ecosystem in one location for greater simplicity and visibility, maximizing the customer’s operational efficiency with automated workflows.”
Experts discuss why SecureX is a different kind of solution.
The Factors That Set SecureX Apart
A common misconception about SecureX is that it is a SIEM or a SOAR solution, according to Diag Partners Security Solutions Engineer Gary Geihsler. Geihsler works with Cisco’s security solutions and says that SecureX has some key differences.
“A SIEM solution typically has a data lake component to it,” he says. “SecureX does not store data. It’s more of a point-in-time sort of view of your product.”
The downside of having data storage components is that they’re usually a high cost for the consumer. Geihsler says that not only does SecureX not have those costs but it also has additional benefits.
“Store products don’t do the monitoring that you want to do from a lot of different groups inside an organization, and they’re really just automating some functions,” he says. “SecureX can automate many functions, including interacting with third-party products like ticketing systems, ServiceNow, or creating rooms in Webex or Microsoft Teams.”
Another benefit to SecureX is that employees don’t necessarily need the technical background to implement it that other solutions might require.
“SecureX doesn't have that,” Geihsler says. “Coding knowledge is good, but it’s not super necessary. We use a graphical interface to really make it easy for customers to use some pre-built playbooks, but they can also build their own.”
The security landscape will likely continue to grow more complex for businesses as they move toward hybrid work environments. With an integrated solution that puts simplicity at its core, organizations can move securely through the future of work.
