Cisco Evolving Into A Security Company

ChipGuy writes "Om Malik has an opinion piece stating his opinion that Cisco Systems is slowly becoming a security company, a move which may prove problematic for traditional security vendors like Symantec. Cisco has bought its way into the market, worried about the security moves of its main rival, Juniper Networks. The company expects to make major announcements at the RSA Conference later this week. "

Comments

Similar, not the same though.

[anti-NAT]

While I'm not defending the issues listed on that page, Microsoft are directly responsible for the flaws in their software, as they wrote it, where as the products described on the Attrition site came to Cisco via acquisition (the ONS products came from Pirelli (I think the same company that make tires and very "interesting" calendars)), in times when security probably wasn't one of the checkpoints on the due diligence list.

The only "true" Cisco products are routers, IOS, and more recently the IOS that is on the CRS-1. The security record for IOS has been pretty resonable, when you consider that it has and will always be "exposed" to the Internet.

Re:Kind of like

[AndyMcL]

Sorry, this is just conspiracy theory stuff. I work at Cisco and there is plenty of info out there on what NAC is. This is for corporate networks and yes it will deny access the unauthorized or non-standard devices that attempt to use a network. It is policy based so if there is a PC or Laptop that does not fit the bill, then that device will be put on a different VLAN which will either allow the user to update Service Packs or virus definition or just have bandwidth restricted Internet access (like a guest VLAN). So it is not an all or nothing thing. IT departments can set it up how they want. NAC is cool stuff. You can even have ACL's that are tied to a certain user or group for instance. Also it is open so other companies can make applications that work with it. If you have seen the "Self Defending Networks" advertisements, this is part of it.

So there is no grand plan to take over the world. Just help IT departments control what devices access the business critical network. Would you really want someone to stick an unpatched fresh out of the box Windows PC with no Anti-virus on your network? Now that many companies have voice on their network 3, 4, or 5 9's is not the goal anymore. Now it is 100% uptime (excluding change windows) so having as much centralization, standardization and automation is critical to getting to that 100%.

With NAC and related technologies, companies can be sure of who is on, what they are doing, and the device they are connecting with meets IT standards.

Regards,

Andy

PS If you want more info on NAC just search on the CCO.