Cisco Security Suites - Explained

When considering how to secure your network and all of your end-user clients, there's quite a lot to consider.

 In this blog, we'll run through an overview of each of these suites.

Cisco has made working out which security product is right for you easy by splitting their protection suites into following three suites:

• Cisco User Protection Suite
• Cisco Cloud Protection Suite
• Cisco Breach Protection Suite.

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Cisco User Protection Suite

The Cisco User Protection Suite is a tool installed on the end-user's laptop and is aimed at securing your end users.

This means you're likely to capture the potential breach at the closest point of entry.

The User Protection Suite is more than one tool; the purpose is to  reduce the initial attack vector.

Attack vectors, of course come in multiple ways. Ensuring that users are properly authenticated and their credentials cannot be stolen (Cisco Duo), along with some suitable insights and threat intelligence, is all important.

The end-user protection suite comes with some key tools:

• Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) ensures that the websites you access are not actually directly rendered in your own local browser
• Email Threat Defence
• Security Service Edge (SSE)

Licencing Options:

• User Protection: Essentials:
  • Secure Access
  • Cisco Duo
  • Secure Email Threat Defense
• User Protection: Advantage:
  • Secure Access
  • Cisco Duo
  • Secure Email Threat Defense
  • Secure Endpoint

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Cisco Cloud Protection Suite

Many businesses have moved a lot of their workloads to the cloud, and in doing so, there's a new area for you to secure.

Defending your cloud workloads and reducing your risk is all about managing the attack surface. To achieve this, Cisco offers the Cloud Protection Suite.

The other key aspect of the Cloud Protection Suite – and all three of these suites actually – is the visibility and reporting the tools give you – that’s peace of mind for any security or network administrator.

Cloud protection is more than just stopping an attacker getting in the front door – you also want to implement segmentation between applications.

I the unlikely event an attacker does get in, what they can gain access to is greatly restricted.

The Cloud Protection Suite is a set of tools aimed at improving the security of your cloud applications. The suite of tools comes in two forms: the essentials and the advantage.

It depends on whether you want to deliver foundational protection or a more advanced level of protection for your business - here's the choice:

Licencing Options:

• User Protection: Essentials:
  • Multicloud Defense Essentials
  • Secure Workload SaaS
  • Vulnerably Management
• User Protection: Advantage:
  • Multicloud Defense Advantage
  • Cloud Application Security
  • Attack Surface Management
  • Secure Workload
  • Vulnerably management

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Cisco Breach Protection Suite

The Breach Protection Suite is largely about providing threat visibility along with intelligence on what those threats might be.

When you can see a threat early on, you can deal with it early on.

Included in the Breach Protection Suite is Extended Detection and Response, or XDR as it's known.

XDR is all about collating your log files from various sources and making sense of what it means.

Breach Protection is also about ensuring your email is defended against as well as your endpoints with Secure Endpoint Advantage.

If you want the tools to be manged by a third party, we can help with our SSE Managed Service, or Cisco offer the Breach Protection Premier where the XDR will be managed by Cisco along with their Talents Incident Response.

If you want the maximum hands-off and the maximum protection, the Breach Protection Premier Suite is likely to suit your business.

Licencing Options:

• Breach Protection: Essentials:
  • Cisco XDR Essentials
  • Cisco Email Threat Defense
  • Cisco Secure Endpoint Advantage
• Breach Protection: Advantage:
  • Cisco XDR Essentials
  • Cisco Email Threat Defense
  • Cisco Secure Endpoint Premier
  • Cisco Secure Network Analytics
  • Cisco Telemetry Broker
• Breach Protection: Premier:
  • Cisco Managed Extended Detection and Response
  • Cisco Talos Incident Response
  • Cisco Technical Security Assessment

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Cisco Security Suites: Summary

This blog has provided the merest of high-level summaries of the Cisco Security Suites - there's a lot to take in and absorb. Bundling the tools into these three suites makes this a little easier to understand.

As you’ll have read, they’re split into three key categories – end users,  cloud workloads and breach protection. Each has a hand in securing your overall network posture.

If you only do one thing, consider the most likely attack vector for an attacker trying to access your network:

• If you have a lot of mobile users, it is likely the User Protection Suite
• If you have extensive cloud applications, then consider the Cloud Protection Suite
• If you want all round visibility and peace of mind, look at the Breach Protection Suite

There’s a lot to consider when securing your network and with the distribution of data, you need to ensure you have applied security to anywhere an attacker might gain access.

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