Network giants unite to fight security risks

A group of industry stalwarts is banding together to help enterprises, services providers and telcos fight cyber foes.The Network Resilience Coalition includes AT&T, Broadcom, BT Group, Cisco Systems, Fortinet, Intel, Juniper Networks, Lumen Technologies, Palo Alto Networks, Verizon and VMware. Its aim is to deliver open and collaborative techniques to help improve the security of network hardware and software across the industry.The coalition was brought together under the Center for Cybersecurity Policy & Law, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the security of networks, devices and critical infrastructure. The Center has a broad security mission, but at least for now, it wants the Resilience group to focus on routers, switches and firewalls that are older, may have reached end-of-life vendor support, or have been overlooked for security patching or replacement. To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Fortinet unveils data center firewalls with AI support

Fortinet has released two new high-speed, next generation firewalls designed to protect data center assets.The 387Gbps 3200F series and 164Gbps 900G series feature support for the vendor’s AI-Powered Security Services, which blend AI and machine-learning technologies to make customers aware of cyber threats and act on protecting resources much more quickly, according to Nirav Shah, vice president of products and solutions at Fortinet.FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services use real-time data from Fortinet’s threat researchers at FortiGuard Lab to monitor for new dangers. “We look at terabytes of data every day, and that’s where we run our AI and machine learning to see different things – whether we need to enable AI-powered services with IPS, or utilize sandbox technologies to mitigate them,” Shah said. “If you look at the cybersecurity industry, and the amount of data that we see, and the patterns and other things that we need to recognize to find the threats – [it] is extremely tough if you do it manually.”To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Cisco hosts containerized firewall on Catalyst switches to protect mixed IT/OT networks

Cisco announced a containerized firewall package for its venerable Catalyst switch family that’s designed to help enterprise customers with mixed IT and OT systems more easily segment network resources and save money by consolidating network and security deployments.Specifically, Cisco built a Docker-based container for its Secure Firewall Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) that can be hosted on its Catalyst 9300 access switches. Cisco Secure Firewall ASA combines firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, encryption and virtual private network (VPN) support.The firewall supports up to 10 logical interfaces, which can be used for segmentation. This segmentation helps limit the ability of an attacker to move laterally within the network by containing any breach to a specific zone, wrote Pal Lakatos-Toth, an engineering product manager with Cisco’s security business group, in a blog about the news.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Cisco snaps up Oort to bolster identity management technology

Cisco is continuing its summer buying spree with the acquisition of security startup Oort for an undisclosed amount.Oort offers an identity threat detection and response platform for enterprise security.  Founded in 2019, Oort raised $15 million in Series A funding that included money from Cisco’s venture capital arm.“With Oort’s API-driven, cloud-native, and agentless platform, they eliminate identity visibility gaps across disparate data sources, show misconfigurations, check for security vulnerabilities, and offer predictive identity analytics to proactively stop attacks,” wrote Raj Chopra, senior vice president and chief product officer for Cisco Security, in a blog about the acquisition. To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Microsoft jumps into competitive security service edge (SSE) arena

Microsoft is jumping into the competitive Secure Service Edge (SSE) arena with a software package aimed at protecting its Windows and Azure customers as well as other cloud-based enterprise resources.The new software is part of Microsoft’s Entra identity and network access suite, and it features two new elements – Entra Internet Access and Entra Private Access – that will control and secure access to cloud-based resources. Those two new pieces, coupled with Microsoft’s existing SaaS-focused cloud-access security broker (CASB), called Microsoft Defender for Cloud apps, comprise Microsoft’s SSE package.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Cisco amps up security analytics software

Cisco unveiled a new version of its Secure Network Analytics (SNA) software aimed at making it easier to track more data flows and act faster on relevant security alerts. Enhancements in SNA release 7.4.2 include the ability to more efficiently gather, process and store data; advanced detection capabilities; improved telemetry support; and the ability to run on Cisco’s high-performance UCS M6 hardware.Cisco’s network analytics software is designed to help organizations detect and respond to security threats by harnessing telemetry data from multiple sources and providing insights into network behavior to proactively identify risks, according to a blog post by Jay Bethea, product marketing manager with Cisco’s secure email group.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Gartner: SSE landscape shifts as vendors add more security services

The market for managed security services is shifting as enterprises weigh their requirements for cloud-based security capabilities and vendors refine their feature sets and product integrations.Converged security services can offer significant benefits to enterprises when it comes to manageability, scalability, security, and price, according to research firm Gartner, which introduced the term SASE, or secure access service edge. SASE is a network architecture that combines software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) and security functionality into a unified cloud service that promises simplified WAN deployments, improved efficiency and security, and application-specific bandwidth policies.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Multiple SD-WAN vendors can complicate move to SASE

Enterprises over the past several years have embraced SD-WAN for many reasons, including the flexibility of cloud architecture, enhanced security, centralized management of distributed locations, and improved application availability and performance. In turn, the popularity of SD-WAN has helped propel interest in secure access service edge (SASE), a network architecture that converges connectivity and security services.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Networking, security initiatives dominate IT spending priorities

Network connectivity and security are key areas for IT investment as well as potential barriers to global success, according to new research.Nearly half of CIOs claim that establishing and managing connectivity in new markets is the single most critical factor when it comes to ensuring successful global expansion, according to Expereo, which surveyed 650 large enterprise and mid-market CIOs across Asia, Europe and North America for its research. In addition, 49% of CIOs report that their board views global connectivity as “a business-critical asset to growth.”To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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Cisco urges stop using weak crypto algorithms with OSPF

To reduce the risk of service problems, Cisco is making it harder for organizations to use weak cryptographic algorithms when setting up authentication for OSPF packets on certain Catalyst Edge Platforms and Integrated Services Routers (ISR).Newer versions of Cisco’s IOS XE software (Release 17.11.1 and later) no longer support those algorithms—DES, 3DES, and MD5—by default, Cisco stated in a field Notice.Specifically, the algorithms are no longer default options for the open shortest path first v 3 (OSPFv3) protocol, which uses the IPsec secure socket API to add authentication to OSPFv3 packets that distribute routing information.To read this article in full, please click here READ MORE HERE…

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