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Learn how Cisco’s Security Step-Up promotion delivers multi-layered defenses against phishing attacks, credential theft, and malicious web exposures   

In our recently published Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index, one thing was made very clear: organizations across the globe need to step up their security. Only 15% of organizations globally are deemed to have a mature level of preparedness to handle the security risks of our hybrid world. We have an alarming cybersecurity readiness gap that will only widen if global business and security leaders don’t pivot quickly.

We already know that security resilience is foundational to business strategy and is collectively prioritized throughout the organization, underpinning the success of company initiatives across the board. Resilience is about verifying threats, understanding connections across the organization, and seeing the full context of any situation so teams can prioritize and ensure their next action is the best one.

Security resilience suffers from all sorts of security gaps, but threat actors know that human beings are your most vulnerable soft spot. Here at Cisco, we detect 9 million phishing and email-related threats every hour. In fact, given that people are your No. 1 weakness and the favorite target of attackers everywhere, email is one of your three most critical attack vectors. The other two are unauthorized access to networks and applications (which leads to credential theft) and exposure to web-borne malware (due to lax DNS layer protections).

We at Cisco think it’s time someone made it easy for you to defend all three. That’s why we’re introducing Cisco Security Step-Up to deploy three powerful lines of defense to secure and strengthen your business. Only Cisco can offer the breadth of cloud security solutions to protect every critical attack vector — email, web traffic, and user credentials — in a single step.

Deploy defenses against phishing attacks, malicious websites, and credential theft

Make no mistake, today’s relentless phishing, identity, and web-based attacks will expose gaps in your security. You need full coverage—precisely what you get with Cisco Security Step-Up. That coverage comes in three solutions working together to protect your people, applications, and data.

  • Block email threats like phishing with Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Email is still your No. 1 threat vector and the route for 40% of ransomware attacks (often achieved through phishing).  Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense can:
    • Block email threats before users even see them.
    • Rapidly respond to and remediate new threats in real time.
    • Thoroughly inspect internal emails to prevent threats from spreading internally.
  • Secure web traffic with Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG). Many sophisticated attack campaigns are designed to lure users into visiting malicious websites or downloading infected applications. With Umbrella, you can:
    • Protect users wherever and whenever they click so they won’t end up on phishing sites.
    • Stop malware and ransomware spread, even if it ultimately reaches your endpoints.
    • Secure web traffic throughout your infrastructure and control how users interact with cloud-based applications.
  • Prevent unauthorized access and credential theft with Duo. Strong user authentication and device verification are essential to reduce your risk of breaches with strong user authentication and device verification combined with dynamic risk-based access policies. With Duo, you can:
    • Prevent intrusions and sophisticated identity-based attacks even as you enhance user productivity.
    • Defend against MFA bypass attacks and account hijacking.
    • Deploy an easy-to-use solution that frustrates attackers, not users.

Your next step: End-to-end protection

Security shouldn’t be slow to deploy or hard to use. And it shouldn’t sacrifice productivity in the name of protection. These truths shape the solutions included in the Cisco Security Step-Up promotion and they help ensure you’ll see benefits that mean something not just to security, but to the business overall.

We’re focused on delivering three key benefits:

  • Simplicity. What does simple security mean to you? Most likely it means solutions that work with what you have, with no changes required. And protection that’s easy to deploy, manage, and use. (Because security that’s difficult to use doesn’t get used.)
  • Safeguards. Battling multi-faceted threats calls for multiple layers of security more effective protection.This is crucial to prevent account takeovers, intrusions, and data loss. On this score, one of our unique advantages is that our security equips you to marshal real-time threat intel from Cisco Talos Threat Intelligence Group, whose insights help safeguard you against emergent threats.
  • Resilience. A big part of a CISO’s job is to limit risks to your business. Improving security resilience is essential in that effort. The Cisco Security Step-Up promotion helps boost your security resilience by reducing the need for investigation, response, remediation—even help desk requests. That frees up your IT resources for more strategic initiatives.

It’s time to step up your security 

Only Cisco delivers comprehensive protections in a single offering against all critical attack vectors: email, web traffic, and user credentials. To get this protection elsewhere, you’d have to procure multiple products from multiple vendors—leaving you with a much higher total cost of ownership (TCO).  With Cisco, you can consolidate your security solutions and get the benefits of lower TCO, more effective security, and a simplified experience. 

There’s no better time to close the critical security gaps we see attackers targeting 9 million times an hour.  We’ve made it easy for you to secure those gaps with protection against phishing, ransomware, stolen credentials, malware, and other threats, all delivered from the cloud for simple and fast deployment. And you never have to trade security for flexibility and productivity.  

Learn more about Cisco Security Step-Up


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Authors

Emma Carpenter

Vice President

Global Security Specialist Organization (GSSO)