Cisco's industry-leading firewall solutions provide deep visibility and context across networks from the endpoint to the cloud.
For example, let’s take a look at what happens when a user inserts a USB drive into a corporate laptop that is protected by Cisco security solutions. For starters, Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) automatically detects, blocks and removes any malware, and the results can be shared with the firewall’s Firepower Management Center (FMC). At the same time, Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) sends user identity information and metadata (including device type and security group tags) to the firewall FMC, which provides granular visibility and control. This includes the ability to create firewall policies for specific device types (e.g., Apple or Samsung devices) and enables FMC to differentiate between corporate and personal devices.
The firewall can then direct ISE to take action, including the shutdown of a specific switch port, tagging traffic from a device that has a quarantined system tag, and more. This is just one example since the firewall FMC can use a wide range of criteria to determine if a device is a threat and then direct ISE to take appropriate action.
Today the firewall is more relevant than ever, and we need to think about it using a fresh perspective. We must go beyond form factors and physical or virtual appliances to embrace firewalling as a functionality. Firewalling needs to be about delivering world-class security controls – the key elements for preventing, detecting, and blocking attacks faster and more accurately. All with common policy and threat visibility delivered everywhere you need it, including the data center, private cloud, and public cloud environments.
