It’s no secret that federal agencies are increasingly adopting or at least “dipping a toe” into the cloud computing pool. Private and public cloud environments offer agencies the opportunity to reduce costs, increase agility, and improve flexibility to meet their mission-critical objectives. However, concerns over the security and control of data are two major reasons many agencies aren’t moving to the cloud. In fact, a new Cisco-sponsored survey found that security topped federal IT leaders’ wish list when it comes to evaluating cloud service providers, with 69 percent rating it as a critical characteristic.

Cisco is a longtime leader in not only following, but embracing the government certification and accreditation processes. Common Criteria, FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act) and FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) are all critical evaluation programs that facilitate the implementation of new technologies. That’s not to say government regulations aren’t complex. In fact, Cisco has a team dedicated to managing global government certifications. But without these standards in place, our continued advancement of military and civilian operations would cease to exist at the federal level. Read More »

Tags: cloud, Common Criteria, compliance, FedRAMP, FISMA, govtech

Recently the widespread fire of data breaches impacting privacy of millions of hapless people across the globe has become the stirring news. This spree of cyber attacks unveiling the fact that information security industry, organizations and even governments are vulnerable to today’s persistent, well-organized and sophisticated cyber threats.

There was a common theme among all the recent data breaches shown below and that is the amount of time for initial detection, which is in weeks and months.

According to Verizon data breach report, 85% of cyber attacks Read More »

Tags: Cisco Cloud Security, cloud data center, compliance, Cyber Attacks, cyber threat management, data breach, FISMA, HIPAA, Networks, next-generation, pci, privacy, SecureState, security breaches, security model, service providers

With the growing influx of new mobile devices, connected things, bandwidth intensive applications and more data, the network is more relevant to business success than ever before.  Back in June of 2012, Cisco saw that we needed to move away from multiple network systems loosely linked together to an agile and simple infrastructure, streamlined policy and centralized management would be needed to support new business demands. We called it Cisco Unified Access and we aligned the solution to three pillars: One Network, One Policy and One Management.

For the last few years, we have focused on delivering new products and functionality under this Unified Access model. Below is a timeline of products released as part of the Unified Access framework. Cisco lead the way in delivering gigabit 802.11ac Wi-Fi., converged wireless control in access switches and through the acquisition of Meraki – a complete cloud-managed network solution.

The timeline above doesn’t represent every feature and function we have delivered, but it shows Cisco’s commitment to this Unified Access model, both from a cloud-managed and on-premise solution perspective.

Today, Cisco is announcing a number of new products and new functionality to existing products that will help mobilize the workforce, secure the business and increase IT agility. The announcement includes the following: Read More »

Tags: #80211ac, 11ac, 802.11ac, access, access point, Agile, agility, Aironet, anyconnect, AP, App, application, asr, bandwidth, business, byod, Cisco, compliance, converge, converged, Converged Access, data, device, emm, employee, Enterprise, experience, feature, foundation, function, gigabit, Guest, guest access, HD, HDX, high density, identity, indoor, infrastructure, interop, ISE, ISR, IT, LAN, lifecycle, Manage, management, MDM, meraki, mobile, mobility, model, network, operation, outdoor, policy, portfolio, prime, Prime Infrastructure, product, secure, security, services, simple, simplify, system, System Manager, technology, traffic, unified access, vpn, WAN, wi-fi, wifi, wired, wireless, wlan, workforce

In the past few weeks, I’ve received two replacement credit cards. And, no, this does not indicate I’ve done too much shopping! It means that hackers are continuing to target retailers and the bank decided I needed to be protected by new credit card numbers.

I’m Carol Ferrara-Zarb, and as the leader of Cisco’s Security Solutions team, I’m joining the Cisco Retail blog today to talk to you about security and compliance in the store. While consumers certainly worry about security, the concerns of retailers are magnified because you are among the highest-profile targets right now for professional hacker attacks. Store owners and operators are just about lying awake at night wondering who is going to be next.

At the same time, change is continuing on the security front, particularly in the area of PCI compliance. At the end of this calendar year, the new 3.0 version of the PCI DSS mandate will come into force. Are you ready for the new requirements?

If you’re a Cisco customer, you very well may be. Join us on July 23 for a free, one-hour webcast called, “Straight Talk about Reducing Complexity and Maintaining Compliance in Retail.” Cisco Security Architect Christian Janoff, who sits on the PCI Security Standards Council Board of Advisors, and Aaron Reynolds, PCI Managing Principal for Cisco partner Verizon, will lead a candid discussion on retail security. The session covers:

• The changes in the PCI DSS 3.0 mandate and their impact on your retail business
• How to satisfy three standards—PCI, SOX, and HIPAA—by configuring one control
• Implementing the latest, simplified strategies for PCI scope reduction, and how they can be superior to traditional methods for many retailers

You’ll come away with an overview of today’s threat landscape, and we’ll put it all into perspective to support your continued pursuit of compliance and retail success. Registrants will also receive the Simplifying Compliance Answer Kit, a set of documents and tools to help you understand compliance better.

The webcast takes place on July 23 at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET. Please register today! Be sure to bring your questions to take part in the discussion.

We’ll see you there!

Tags: Carol Ferrara-Zarb, compliance, credit card, customer, data, HIPAA, information, pci, retail, security, shopper, sox, standard, threat, webcast

 Earlier this week, we announced the Cisco Domain Ten framework 2.0, enhanced by great input from customers, partners, and Cisco’s well-earned experience of strategizing and executing IT transformation.

The enhanced Cisco Domain Ten framework helps customers drive better strategic decisions, providing greater focus on business outcomes, providing deeper analysis of hybrid cloud implications, and extending the framework beyond data center and cloud to include all IT transformation initiatives.

You may have read Stephen Speirs earlier blogs about Cisco Domain Ten for cloud transformation. Today, let’s look at key changes in the Cisco Domain Ten framework 2.0 from the original version. These changes have been adopted to enhance discussions on three themes:

1. Highlight importance of public clouds as part of IT transformation and solutions using IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS within the data center and across the entire business.
2. Addition of “Organization” in Domain 10 to bring together the business and technology focus for strategy discussions.
3. Name changes for some domains to facilitate ease of alignment and discussion on overall IT transformation across multiple architectures and technology solutions such as ITaaS, collaboration, mobility, video, etc. for both enterprise and provider perspectives.

Read More »

Tags: application, automation, catalog, cloud application, Cloud Computing, compliance, customer interface, data center, Domain 10, Domain Ten, financial, Governance, infrastructure, IT Tranformation, organization, platform, process, security, strategy, virtualization