Cisco Captures Two Leaders Magic Quadrants in Security
Gartner has recognized Cisco's SSLVPN and Secure Web Gateway solutions as leaders in their respective technology. To this end, Gartner has positioned Cisco into the coveted leaders Magic Quadrant for each technology. These two categories arguably have the most industry buzz of all security technologies making this achievement even more prestigious right now. The Gartner magic quadrants are frequently used by corporations as part of their decision criteria when making new technology selections. Cisco now boasts leadership in four Gartner magic quadrants for security technologies. Read more
Cisco Security Quick Tip of the Week
Did you know that Cisco switches come with the ability to perform web authentication at each switch port? Most people don't realize that this feature exists in Cisco IOS so I figured it would be a good Security Quick Tip. Web authentication works by redirecting a users browser to a login page as soon as they connect to the switch port. Once they login, the switch forwards their credentials to a radius server for verification. The radius server can either store user accounts or look to Active directory or LDAP instead. Read more
Cisco Security Quick Tip of the Week
The Cisco ASA has several ways to perform network address translation on IP addresses that it processes. The most potent NAT feature is called policy NAT. I'll take you through how you can unleash the power of policy NAT on your ASA. Read more
Top Enterprise Security Requirements for the Apple Tablet
Submitted by jheary on Mon, 01/18/10 - 8:57pm.Will the rumored Apple tablet have the security chutzpah to compete in the Enterprise market? Apple has setup another invitation only event for January 27th. The invitation reads, "come see our latest creation". The industry is speculating that Apple will unveil its long awaited tablet computer, rumored to be called the iSlate. Apple is traditionally a consumer focused company but I'd go out on a limb and say that a tablet PC is more of an enterprise product than a consumer product right now. Read more
Cisco Security Quick Tip of the Week
Over the years I've gathered lots of configuration tips for Cisco Security gear. Some I've learned through blood, sweat and tears and some were passed along to me from others who acquired them the same way. I figure its high time I pass some on to you as well. Each week I'll post a blog of another Cisco Security configuration tip, if there are certain products you'd like tips on just let me know by commenting on this blog. This week I've picked Cisco IPS. Read more
Cisco ASA Takes on Botnets
Cisco just turned up the heat on botnets around the globe. ASA 8.2.2 and ASDM 6.2.5 upgrade code recently posted to their website. The big new feature is the Botnet traffic filter drop capabilities. The previous ASA release, 8.2.1, included a monitor/track only Botnet traffic filter feature. (If you haven't read about the Cisco botnet traffic filter yet see my previous blog on the topic to get up to speed.) With 8.2.2 ASA owners will be able to take proactive action against Botnet command and control and other malware traffic. Read more
Google Nexus One vs. Top 10 Phone Security Requirements
Consumer Grade or Enterprise Ready? Google just announced their entry into the smartphone, or as they call it the super phone, market today. The Google Nexus One super phone runs their Android Operating system but the hardware is built by HTC. The Nexus One is entering a smart phone market that is taking increasing heat from enterprises for their lack of robust security features. So how does the Nexus One stack up? Let's take a look.
The Nexus One has many of the table stakes security features that we've come to expect. These include: Read more
Top 5 Security Breaches of 2009
As 2009 draws to a close some are saying good riddance. To say 2009 was an active year for security breaches would be quite an understatement. The number of personal records exposed skyrocketed to 220 million records this year, compared with 35 million in 2008. 2009 saw historically high levels of security breaches, worms and malware attacks; let's hope the next decade isn't more of the same. Here is a list of my favorite security breaches of 2009. Read more
Cisco Regains Top Spot in IPS Market
The latest analyst market share data for the security space has been released and it appears Cisco has made some gains. The biggest news is that Cisco regained the top spot in the IPS market one quarter after it was stripped away by McAfee. Here are some of the highlights contained in the analyst information for 3rd quarter 2009.
IPS Read more
The battle for the top spot in IPS continues to be a close. Cisco edged out McAfee in Q3 for the crown, but IBM ISS is still right there in their peripheral vision. Source: Infonetics
Network IDS/IPS Market Share Q3 CY’09
Cisco – 25%
Chinese Zodiac Accurately Predicts Yearly Cybercrime Trends
Could it be possible that the Chinese Calendar has been successfully predicting the trends and methods of security activity in a given year? Could the Chinese Zodiac be used to predict the security future like the Farmers Almanac predicts the weather? We are about to close out 2009 the year of the Earthy Ox as defined by the Chinese calendar. Read more
Five Shortcuts to PCI Compliance
By now we all know that the key to becoming PCI compliant is all about how well you can control the number of in-scope devices. Obviously, the smaller your scope the better. The challenge is how to efficiently and judiciously reduce your PCI scope without breaking everything and costing you a ton of cash. Re-architecting your network to reduce and define PCI scope is one of the first action items you need to complete as you work towards compliance. Unfortunately, it is also one of the highest hurdles of the process. Read more
Cisco Completes Acquisition of Cloud Based ScanSafe
ScanSafe is a best of breed software as a service "cloud" web security player. Given that most threats are now propagated via port 80/443 this technology is in high demand. ScanSafe offers several innovative features like SearchAhead. SearchAhead modifies search engine results that users receive (like google searches) and adds an ScanSafe securty level icon next to each search entry. This gives users a visual indication of approved, denied, malicious, etc. search hits. If the user then clicks on the icon they are presented with a detailed description of the security risk. Read more
Cisco Network Security Survival Guide
Get the real scoop of what Cisco's new term borderless networks is all about, learn how to use some of the mainstream hacking tools, and understand how you can use what you probably already have to better defend your network. Cisco's techwise TV show just released a new video that I thought was worth mentioning. Here is their description; "The idea was to really narrow down the control points that still remain when your network is no longer identified by a physical entity or easily defined presence if you will. Read more
Pwning Humans for Fun and Profit
If you want to hack a corporation fast, Social Engineering (SE) techniques work every time and more often than not it works the first time. I'm talking about in your face, Mano-a-mano, live in the flesh social engineering techniques. Securing the information that is in the human mind is a monumental, colossal, epic, Read more
New Security Features in Cisco IOS 15.0
Cisco's newly released ISR G2 routers come with a new update to their software features in IOS version 15.0. I will focus on describing some of the new security features that are found in the IOS 15.0 security feature set. It is important to note that IOS 15.0 will work on older ISR models as well as the new ISR G2 platforms. This is a straightforward list with a description of each new feature. Read more
Cisco Releases IPSEC & SSLVPN Client for Windows 7 and Snow Leopard
Cisco just released support for the Windows 7 operating system in both its IPSEC client and SSLVPN client software. The Cisco Anyconnect 2.4 SSLVPN client now supports both 32bit and 64bit Windows 7 hosts. The new Anyconnect 2.4 client additionally supports MAC OSX 10.6.1 32 and 64bit operating systems as well. Cisco also released a Windows 7 32bit version of its widely deployed Cisco VPN client 5.0.6.
Neither client requires any changes at the head-end VPN concentrator/ASA. Read more
55 Credit Unions Found in Violation of FTC's ID Theft Rules
The FTC has found only 59 Identity Theft Red Flag Rule violations in all of the 1000's of Credit Unions under their influence since January 2008 (Red Flag Rules enforcement date). The most prevalent violation found was not having established a Red Flag Identity theft program at all. The 55 Credit unions represent less than 1% of the total credit unions that fall under the jurisdiction of the FTC. So is the FTC really taking Identity Theft seriously? Are they making an impact? Read more
Going Shopping? Cisco Could Be Watching You
Ahhhh, Physical Security! It usually constitutes one of the major weak links in IT security's armor. All you have to do is look at the demand for Network Access Control (NAC) to be convinced. Most don't realize that Cisco has been in the physical security business for a while now, mostly in the IP Video Surveillance (IPVS) sector. Cisco sells HD IP Video Cameras, Video management systems, DVRs, and all the other pieces to complete a full IP Video Surveillance Solution. Read more
Cisco Ironport takes on the Dark Web
Today Cisco externally announced it's newest Ironport Web Security Appliance (WSA) code version. The big splash feature is a brand new, built from scratch, URL filtering engine. Cisco is calling it Web usage Controls. It consists of a list based traditional URL filtering database plus a new dynamic URL categorization engine for un-categorized URLs. Read more
Shields Up! Time to Start Blocking with your Cisco IPS Sensors
Cisco started to include reputation functionality in its IPS sensors about 6 months ago with its 7.0 release. The data has been collected on how effective it has been so far. The findings are significant. Cisco's addition of reputation data to its IPS sensor software has resulted in a 100% increase in effectiveness over signature protection alone. Additionally, it has been found that a reputation lookup and drop can be done 100 times faster than a traditional signature check and drop. IP address reputation is just like a credit score in finance. Read more
- About Cisco Security Expert
Jamey Heary, CCIE No. 7680, is the author of the Cisco NAC Appliance: Enforcing Host Security with Clean Access book by Cisco Press. Jamey is a seasoned security technologist with over 15 years in the IT field with 10 years focused on IT security. His areas of expertise include network and host security design and implementation, security regulatory compliance, and routing and switching. His other certifications include CISSP, CCSP, and Microsoft MCSE. He is also a Certified HIPAA Security Professional. Jamey is currently a Security Consulting Systems Engineer with Cisco, though the opinions expressed here are his own. Jamey is a member of Network World's Cisco Subnet blog community.
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