Cisco, Microsoft team up on network access security
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OCTOBER 18, 2004  - Network giant Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. today announced a collaborative effort to bridge a divide between their emerging network access security architectures.
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco announced a pair of additions to its Network Admission Control (NAC) product line on Monday, launching new tools that promise to extend the authentication system to a greater variety of devices and office environments. The introductions were timed to coincide with the start of the Security Standard Conference in Chicago, which is owned and operated by InfoWorld's parent company, IDG. They come hot on the heels of Cisco's late-August announcement that Intel will arm computers using its vPro and Centrino microprocessors with the ability to communicate their security posture to corporate networks, even before they have been booted up. Â  Cisco unveiled its Network Module for NAC, which will give customers the ability to implant the authentication system into the vendor's Integrated Services Router (ISR) hardware, along with its NAC Profiler, which is meant to allow users to monitor a greater number of non-PC devices using the security tools. Executives with the San Jose, Calif.-based company said the latest products evidence the company's ongoing work to mature NAC aggressively. "This is an announcement where you see things continue to develop, not only in terms of the types of things that NAC technologies can do, as was the case with the chipset interaction, but also in terms of addressing problems that everyone has, such as getting posture assessments for devices that don't run on Windows," said Brendan O'Connell, senior product manager for Cisco's Security Technology Group. "With the ISR module, we're giving customers the option to push NAC into the branch-office setting, which is something else customers have been asking us for," O'Connell said. "It's all about increasing NAC's ease-of-use and operability." While Cisco is widely credited with inventing NAC technology -- which is identified by other vendors by the more generic term "network access control," and is used to verify a device's identity and security standing as it attempts to connect to a network -- some industry watchers have criticized the manufacturer for not moving faster to introduce products such as its new releases. In addition to expanding the potential footprint of its NAC systems by driving the technology into its ISR hardware, which it has been selling to customers for over three years, Profiler addresses one of the primary security concerns raised with the authentication systems, namely, their ability to identify and monitor IP-connected devices other than desktop and laptop computers. Based on NAC's complexity, some companies have chosen to use branch offices or remote locations to test its impact and efficacy in the field before blending the tools into their central IT networks, Cisco officials said -- exactly the type of scenario the ISR module will seek to facilitate. The ability to add NAC via a blade in the ISR devices will also appeal to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), the networking giant contends, as will the ability to license the technology for office settings with 50 to 100 users -- the smallest deployment alternative for the tools the vendor has offered to date. Cisco maintains that by offering NAC monitoring for IP-connected machines such as Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phones and networked printers, companies will no longer be forced to formulate complicated exceptions to test the devices. In adding direct hooks for such equipment into NAC, Cisco claims it has also addressed the perceived security loophole created by the need to create such exemptions, which some have said made it easier for attackers to defeat the authentication systems by spoofing such devices. "It's not just PCs that are connecting to the perimeter of a network where customers need to make these types of decisions, which has been sort of a hole for a while as it was cumbersome to do NAC securely for some of these other devices, and users didn't have much information at their fingertips when they could do it," O'Connell said. "In some customer deployments, over half of the devices on the network are IP phones today, so, Profiler is an important step forward in improving NAC's abilities to that end." Ladi Adefala, security practice manager for World Wide Technology, a St. Louis-based systems integrator that both uses and re-sells Cisco's NAC products, said the new products should help expand the technology's uptake in both larger and smaller customers. Many companies have been looking for ways to test NAC in smaller settings and then extend the tools to a wider set of users, making the Network Module product launch particularly important, he said. The Profiler will eliminate the need for IT shops and service providers like World Wide Technology to port NAC to phones and other devices, a time-consuming process, according to Adefala. Cisco has been actively marketing two approaches to NAC -- using its appliances to provide local protection on networks and also utilizing its top-down network-wide "framework" strategy. This has caused some customers to spend a long time deciding which route to go down, the expert say. However, Adefala contends that more companies are jumping further into NAC as Cisco's products become more mature. "There was some initial confusion with which way to go, but Cisco has been able to get most customers to begin considering it more closely, particularly by marketing the appliance as a one-stop shop for NAC," he said. "I think that will continue to be the case over the next year because of the type of announcements we're seeing here, and more integration with third-party products." One industry analyst echoed those comments, saying Cisco's is making "incremental improvements" with each NAC product release and likely growing its overall customer base for the tools. Cisco's move to launch the NAC Profiler directly addresses a "perceived shortcoming" of the systems in allowing more devices to be tested, while the Network Module will encourage broader deployment among large multinationals and among smaller firms, said Phil Hochmuth, analyst with Boston-based Yankee Group. "They're trying to fit in more places with both the switches and the framework. Obviously a lot more customers are using the [appliances] today because they are easier to deploy, but I think the framework will eventually appeal to some people," Hochmuth said. "They also have all these switches in place, and if they can harness that to sell NAC, that could be pretty powerful. "NAC remains complicated and Cisco has been guilty of playing both sides a bit with the two different approaches, but they know that if they can get customers to adopt it today with the appliances, the eventually might go for the network-wide approach," the analyst said.
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IBM and Cisco Systems have unveiled product updates that will tie technology from the two companies more closely together in an effort to secure customer networks from worms and viruses.
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Cisco executives told analysts this week that the company plans to take data center virtualization into areas such as application-aware switching and will partner to provide systems management software.
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Fujitsu and Cisco have announced that they have reached an agreement to enter into a strategic alliance to carry out joint development of high-end routers, plan future cooperation in routing and switching, and collaborate on quality improvement.
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eWeek: Security partnerships and technology advances are making it increasingly safer to keep corporate data up in the air. To better fight the threat of wireless network subterfuge, Cisco Systems Inc.
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IBM and Cisco have extended their global security alliance through the integration of IBM Tivoli software with Cisco Network Admission Control technologies to help enterprises automatically comply with security policies, then quarantine and remediate at
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OCTOBER 14, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - IBM and Cisco Systems Inc. unveiled product updates that will tie technology from the two companies more closely together in an effort to secure customer networks from worms and viruses.
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In an effort to integrate its IP-based communications products with Microsoft customer relationship management software, Cisco Systems today announced the Cisco CRM Communications Connector.
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Cisco Systems has announced a pair of wireless access points that offer dual-band connectivity and said its line of wireless networking products is being integrated with intrusion-detection software from AirDefense.
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IBM Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. unveiled product updates that will tie technology from the two companies more closely together in an effort to secure customer networks from worms and viruses.
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Computer Associates International Inc. (CA) said on Wednesday that it was joining a Cisco Systems Inc. program to harden enterprise networks against attacks by enforcing security policies on computer hosts that attempt to access network resources, the company said in a statement.
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Blog: IBM and Cisco Systems announce an expanded alliance, focusing on telecommunications carriers and improvements to monitoring and maintaining networks.
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Cisco Systems last week warned that a denial of service (DoS) vulnerability exists for its products. The threat affects all Cisco products running the vendor&#39;s Internetwork Operating System (IOS).
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco executives speaking at the ongoing Security Standard Conference claim that the networking giant hasn't sapped innovation in the security companies it has acquired in its efforts to add to its own expanse of IT systems-defense products, while some customers clearly feel otherwise. Taking the stage at the conference in Chicago on Monday to participate in a panel on Cisco's vision for warding off emerging threats and spam, the company's top security executives, and former IronPort Chief Executive Scott Weiss, defended the firm's growth-via-acquisition strategy. Cisco finalized its $830 million buyout of IronPort in June -- only the latest in a long string of such security acquisitions. The company has already begun blending the messaging and malware filtering gateway specialist's technologies into its firewalls, which the executives claim has created a new capability to provide customers with "wide packet inspection," an approach that adds reputation-based anti-attack capabilities to the systems' existing virus and spam detection abilities. Such integration work illustrates the fact that Cisco is improving the ability of its customers to defend their networks from attack and that the firm is serious about innovation and not just attempting to grow its revenues or boost sales of its networking gear by snapping-up other security vendors, Weiss told the assembled audience. Asked by a conference attendee whether major platform providers like Cisco, Microsoft, and IBM will continue to swallow smaller security companies, along with industry giants like Symantec, and how that will impact the availability of the cutting-edge technologies often developed by independent vendors, Weiss said that more consolidation is likely inevitable. Yet he also acknowledged that some niche players will continue to do well on their own. "All the [venture capital] firms that are into small security companies will likely make out like bandits, and there will be a scrum to get the good stuff," said Weiss, who is still heading up IronPort inside Cisco. "Bigger companies will have to decide whether to build, buy, or partner." Weiss highlighted Webroot, the anti-spyware software company that industry watchers have long tabbed for acquisition based on its specialized focus -- and which continues to defy those predictions and grow on its own -- as an example of the type of vendor that will be able to compete in a world where security is being driven further into other broadly-distributed IT platforms, such as Cisco's ubiquitous networking gear. "I think we'll continue to see new Webroots pop-up that can help deal with new threats," he said. "The issue for these companies is how broad is their platform and how to carve a significant portion of the infrastructure out; they have to ask themselves if their technology is broad enough to support a large, profitable company." Along with the benefits of melding together complimentary technologies, such as gateway filtering tools and firewalls, Weiss claims that customers are seeking integrated technologies from single vendors and increasingly looking for "one throat to choke" when selecting security tools. "Users of these technologies want products that talk to each other and have collaborative interfaces," he said. Customers worry about consolidation However, some existing Cisco customers claim that they are troubled by the continued pace of security industry consolidation. Even if Cisco can add many of the pieces that customers seek, it will likely not be able to provide technologies that are as innovative and effective as those made by independent vendors in some areas, said Waqas Akkawi, senior manager of IT security at Sirva, the moving giant that owns Allied Van Lines, Global Van Lines, and North American Van Lines, among other subsidiaries. Akkawi said that Cisco excels in some areas of security where it has experience, namely in network-based tools, but he noted that even some of those products, such as its IDS (intrusion detection systems) and IPS (intrusion prevention systems), also added via various acquisitions, don't measure up to those made by standalone providers. "Cisco is good at what they do naturally, as with firewalls, routers and switches, but they haven't done a good job on things like IPS and IDS where some other niche companies do a better job," said Akkawi. "In a lot of cases I think customers would be better off if these types of companies partnered instead of doing acquisitions or trying to build functionality into their existing products on their own. Sometimes a niche product that integrates well is going to be better than what these guys are talking about." Akkawi, who is a Cisco-certified IT pro, said that Sirva is constantly considering whether or not to go best-of-breed with independent vendors or buy into integrated security products like those being integrated by platform providers like Cisco's IronPort buyout. "These acquisitions will only work if a platform provider like Cisco can build the acquired technology into things they already do well. In some cases, these types of companies haven't been able to integrate everything they've bought, and we've seen some best-of-breed products go away," he said. "[Sirva] will likely continue to go fifty-fifty in terms of the integrated products we choose to buy, and the others we seek out to get true best-of-breed functionality." Many IT platform providers have moved aggressively in recent years to add security to their portfolios where it fits, as with EMC's buyout of authentication specialists RSA, along with IBM and HP's recent moves to add applications testing capabilities to their software development platforms via acquisition. The nature of the security industry is such that certain functions will be parceled into such widely-used technologies, while other newer tools will likely emerge from independents, said Mick Scully, vice president of product management at Cisco's Security Technology Group. Scully countered that despite any perception of cutting at innovation, Cisco is creating many new technology combinations that customers have responded well to, allowing its overall security business to crest $2 billion in revenues in the firm's fiscal 2006, representing a 25 percent annual growth rate in its overall security business. "There will always be a balance between best-of-breed and integrated security. The beauty of the market is that it is constantly changing at a rapid pace, and we will always see startups who address specific problems," Scully said. "But if you look at an acquisition like IronPort, we've left it almost entirely intact, run by the same team, even as we push its technologies into other products." Scully also highlighted the fact that Cisco has proven its chops as a security innovator, such as in creating the burgeoning market for NAC device authentication systems. He said that Cisco itself views its acquisitions as fifty-fifty propositions, looking for as many opportunities to continue to innovate the technologies its buys as it seeks opportunities to fold them into its other product lines. "It's an interesting dichotomy, I sort of see what these customers are saying, but we also believe that our standalone products, such as our NAC appliances, are already best-of-breed," Scully said. "As niche security markets become mature, merchant markets, we are going to look to get into those markets where we fit in; but we're also doing a lot of organic product development on our own, and we feel that we can offer best-of-breed capabilities in the security markets we compete in."
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Prometric and Pearson Vue divvy up the goods Microsoft and Cisco have been playing tit for tat with rival exam providers Prometric and Pearson Vue.â¦
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TOKYO  - Japan&#39;s Fujitsu and Cisco Systems of the US said they have agreed to form a strategic alliance focusing on routers and switches that will enable businesses to build advanced Internet Protocol (IP) networks.